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Royal Children of 
English History 

From Alfred the Great to 
Edward Seventh 

TOLD FOR BOYS AND GIRLS 



A True and Instructive Story of England's 
Royal Princes Who Became Famous. A 
History of Nearly One Thousand Years. 
Edited and Arranged From the Writings of 
Charles Dickens and Others by 

Charles Morris, 

Author of "Child's Story of Nineteenth Century," "Young People's History of 
World," and Many Other Books for Young People. 



PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED 

With Nearly One Hundred Pictures, including Beautiful Colored Litho- 
graph, Half Tones and Special Artist's Drawings. 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

NOV 2 1904 

rfCopynsnt Entry 















ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF 
CONGRESS IN THE YEAR 1904 BY 
W. E. SCULL, IN THE OFFICE 
OF THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS, 
AT WASHINGTON, D. C. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



!^*.* o 

"m^ 








I HE purpose of this book is to interest the children 
in the History of their Fatherland — Old England. 
It is the grandest History in the world. It is full 
of romance and adventure which never grow old. 
We have. selected for this volume the most interesting stories 
which center around the boys and girls who were born to high 
places. Their position in life was due to inheritance which they 
could not help, but the boys and girls of to-day do not owe their 
fortune to inheritance — but to inheritance and individual effort. 
Although it was thus with them, it will teach the lesson of 
contentment to those of us who are not born in royal purple, 
but who have greater opportunities than birth, to rise by our 
own struggles to places of eminence, and to earn, by living 
noble lives, the true purple, which is the symbol of royal worth. 
Every boy and girl may in this way become a royal child and 
have a career of usefulness. 



INTRODUCTION 

The stories told in this book are, as far as possible, 
arranged in chronological order, and told in connection with 
bits of history, which will create an interest in knowing more 
of the remarkable growth of the English nation, not only in 
the British Islands, but in the four quarters of the earth. The 
children of Canada, of Australia, of the United States, and all 
who are descended from English stock wherever they may 
live, will always have an abiding interest in the royal families 
who have, through a directing Providence, been the means of 
perpetuating the best and noblest of English customs, which 
are now the heritage of the twentieth century. 

It is intended that these stories should interest boys and 

girls even before they can read them for themselves. They 

are told in simple language and short sentences. They will 

be read and re-read by their older brothers and sisters, who 

will then be ready for the larger and more complete story of 

England and her people. 

The Editor. 




CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

CHAPTER I. PAGE 

How England Became English 13 

England Two Thousand Years Ago. 

CHAPTER II. 
Alfred The Great 21 

The Beginning of Old England's History. 

CHAPTER III. 
Six Boy Kings 31 

England in the Middle Ages. 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Disobedient Princes 47 

And What Happened to Four of Them. 
CHAPTER V. 

How a Wicked Prince Made a Wicked King . . 57 

England under Richard I. 

CHAPTER VI. 
Prince Arthur 67 

The Story of an Awful Crime. 



io TABLE OF CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VII. 
Henry III 81 

England in the Year A. D. 1216. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The First Prince of Wales ........ 97 

England in the Year A.. D. 1300. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Edward the Black Prince •. . .113 

England in the Year A. D. 1340. 

CHAPTER X. 

Royal Robes Do Not Make a King 125 

England Under Richard II. 

CHAPTER XL 

Henry V and the Baby King . . . . .. . . . .139 

England in the Year A. D. 1400. 

CHAPTER XII. 
Prince Edward and Queen Margaret . . . . .155 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The Princes in the Tower 177 

The Saddest Story in History. 

CHAPTER XTV. 
Edward VI 187 

England Nearly Four Centuries Ago. 

CHAPTER XV. 
Lady Jane Grey 197 

A Queen Without Power and Influence. 



TABLE OP CONTENTS 1 1 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Mary and Elizabeth 209 

The Two Sisters who Became Queens. 

CHAPTER XVIL 
The Baby Queen Only Nine Months Old . . . 223 

The Unhappy Mary Queen of Scots. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

The White Rose of England 235 

The Struggle of Two Princes for the Throne. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Prince Charles and the Spanish Princess . . . 247 

CHAPTER XX. 
Queen Victoria 257 

England in the Nineteenth Century. 

CHAPTER XXI. 
Edward VII 271 

England in the Twentieth Century. 



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X 




England Two Thousand Years Ago. 



BEFORE we tell you of the Royal Children in whom 
you are interested, and speak of their adventures, we 
are sure your curiosity is sufficient to ask who lived 
in England long before there were any Royal Chil- 
dren. We know that here in America before the white man 
came, the red men lived, whom we know as Indians. They 
were governed by chiefs, and lived in tents, and most of the 
tribes wandered from place to place obtaining a living as best 
they could. We also know that when the European came to 
America he drove the Indian from his home and took posses- 
sion of his land, built houses and started villages and cities for 
white men. This was only four or five centuries ago, but 
how was it in England ? 

Let us begin by looking at a map of the world, where we 
will discover in the upper left hand corner of the eastern 

13 



14 



ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 



hemisphere two tiny islands. One of them we know as Eng- 
land and Scotland and the other as Ireland. These islands, 
surrounded as they are by several smaller islands, were there 
at the time of Christ, but they did not have the cities and fine 
harbors, which we know, and into which the merchandise of 
the world sails. They were inhabited 
bypoor savages, who went about almost 
naked, and only dressed in the rough 
skins of beasts. The first people to dis- 
cover them were said to be the Phoeni- 
cians, who were celebrated travelers 
and traders. They found on the islands 
tin and lead, which were very valuable, 
and that the natives, although called 
savages, had mined the ore and were 
making useful implements out of the 
metals. Soon after the French and Bel- 
gians came over to England and settled 
in what is now Kent, and no doubt other 
peoples came from Spain to Ireland and 
settled there. 

The whole country was covered 
with forests and swamps. There were 
no roads, no bridges, no streets, and 
no houses that you would think deserv- 
ing of the name. After the French and 
Belgians had settled in England, and lived there a while, 
the natives became bolder and stronger, and learned a great 
many things which helped them. They soon began to be 
known as Britons. They were very fond of horses, which 
were so well trained that they could run at full gallop over 
the most stony places and even through the woods. They 




A BRITISH WARRIOR WHEN 
CESAR CAME TO ENGLAND. 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ENGLISH 15 

drew war chariots, which had scythes, or long sharp blades, 
fastened to their wheels, and when they drove through the 
enemy's ranks would wound or kill them. In this way the 
native Britons grew brave and bold in fighting among them- 
selves, or in driving back people who came from the main- 
land to take their country. 

But we cannot tell you all of the heroes who appeared 
during this time. However, we must not forget to mention that 
even before the time of Christ, Julius Caesar, a great Roman 
general, invaded England with his army and war chariots. 
He conquered it, of course, which you will all learn more about 
when you go to school and read the books which he wrote 
in Latin, and which tell of his wars in Gaul and in Britain. 
After Julius Caesar, many other Roman generals came to 
England and waged war. There are still found there many 
roads which the Romans built. These are curious places, 
which the boys and girls will want to visit when they go to 
England. Almost all of the towns, whose names end in 
Chester were begun by the Romans, and bits of their houses- 
are to be seen still, built of very small bricks, and sometimes 
people dig up a bit of colored tile, which used to be the floors 
of their houses, or a piece of money, or one of their orna- 
ments. 

There is a little incident told of the time of the Roman 
invasion which we might mention here. One of the Roman 
emperors, whose name was Claudius, sent his soldiers to con- 
quer the islands, and afterwards he himself came to see it. 
In honor of the conquest another emperor called himself 
Britannicus. There was a British chief whose name was Car- 
actacus, who had fought very bravely against the Romans. 
He was brought to Rome and set before the Emperor. As 
he looked at the great buildings of stone and marble in the 



i6 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



streets, he said he could not think why the Romans should 
want to take away the poor rough stone huts of the Britons. 
The poor wife of the British chief had also been brought a 
prisoner to Rome. She fell upon her knees before the 
Emperor and implored pity, and that her husband and she 
might not be punished. For her sake Claudius, the Emperor, 

was kind to Caracta- 
cus ; but nevertheless, 
the Emperor went on 
conquering and taking 
possession of the is- 
lands, very much the 
same as the Europeans 
took possession of 
America. 

What we have 
told you of the Romans 
all occurred a century 
before and after the 
Birth of Christ, and by 
that time the Britons 
had grown strong 
enough, or else the 
Romans had grown so 
weak, that the islands 
were left to the Britons and the Romans had to leave. 

But now we come to speak of the people from which most 
of us are descended, and who are called English. On the 
borders of the North Sea, which you can find on your map of 
Europe, lived a tribe of people who were bold and braVe sail- 
ors, full of the spirit of adventure. They were neighbors to 
the Germans, but were far ahead of them in the arts of 




CARACTACUS LED IN CHAINS. 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ENGLISH 



17 



workmanship and their manner of living. They lived in com- 
fortable huts, they tilled their soil skillfully, and enjoyed the 
hardy sports such as American boys and girls enjoy. This 
made the boys and girls strong and healthy, and when they 
came to be men and women they were bold warriors, ready 
to defend their country and to attack their neighbors. They 
were called Angles. 

In the fifth century, and after the Romans had been 
compelled to leave England, the native Britons got to con- 
quering many places, and 
one bold chief, whose 
name is rather hard to 
pronounce, but you will 
know it when you see it ; 
it was Vortigern. He had 
fought the Romans and 
had learned how to man- 
age armies. But when 
his tribe got into trouble (( 
with other tribes, and 
was likely to be beaten, 
he invited these stran- 
gers over from the North 
Sea to help, among whom were the Angles. They, together 
with the Saxons and Jutes who came with them, not only 
helped Vortigern against his enemies, but later turned and 
conquered him and got a foothold in England. So Vortigern 
in bringing in these strangers had done the worst thing possible 
for the independence of the Britons, for he had brought to Great 
Britain a race that was to overspread and rule it. The strangers 
came over the sea in two gigantic boats under two great 
chiefs, Hengist and Horsa. Their boats were queerly shaped 




A SHIP OF THE NORTHMEN. 



1 8 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

and propelled by oars. These people belonged to the tribe 
which early discovered America, and which we call Norse- 
men or Northmen, the ancient inhabitants of Scandinavia. 

These Angles, from whom we get the word English, 
were heathens and believed in many false gods. From their 
gods we get many of the names of our days in the week. 
The Sun, whom they worshipped, made Sunday sacred. The 
Moon, another of their gods, gives us Monday. Wednesday 
from Woden, Thursday from Thor or the god of thunder, and 
so on. Those old Angles did many cruel things, and their 
worship included many ceremonies which are too horrible to 
mention. When the Angles and their neighbors, the other 
Northmen, came into power and ruled the islands, there were 
seven kings, and the islands were divided up into as many 
kingdoms. They fought one another, it is sad to say, and sold 
their captives to merchants who came from the south of 
Europe. Some of the children, who had been made slaves, were 
taken to Rome and sold in the market place. When Gregory, 
who was a good priest and interested in strangers, saw the 
beautiful captives, with their fair faces, blue eyes, and long 
light hair, he inquired who they were. "Angles.from the Island 
of Britain," was the reply. "Angles" said he, "from the 
Island of Britain ? They have angel faces, and they ought 
to be heirs with the angels in heaven." After that he did 
not rest easy until he had sent teachers to the islands to con- 
vert the heathens to the Christian faith. He afterwards 
became Pope and learned that one of the English kings, 
Ethelbert of Kent, had married Bertha, the daughter of the 
King of France. She was a Christian, and was to have a 
priest to take with her to Britain. So the Pope Gregory sent 
Augustine and gave him a letter to King Ethelbert and Queen 
Bertha. When the priest came to England the King 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ENGLISH 



19 



Ethelbert met him under a tree at Canterbury and listened to 
him while he spoke of the true God. The King then gave up 
worshipping his heathen gods, accepted Christianity and was 
baptized. Thus Christianity came to be the worship of the 
English. Schools were opened, and the boys and girls were 
taught reading, writing, singing and Latin. 

Now that we have learned of the first English king who 
became a Christian, and how the island began to be ruled by 
Englishmen, we are ready to learn more of the boys and girls 
who were called Royal Children. Our story begins in the 
next chapter. 





mY-Sffll^-ROlfNFrRFWURnH^WMHTHOMf-TKFflSIIRF^ \ 




EDWARD OF CAERNARVON, THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES. 

He was always very fond of hunting and, when only a small boy, slew a deer in the forest, and hi! 
attendants found him as seen in the picture. His title came from his principality— Wales. 




HENRY VI THE BABY KING. 




The Beginning of Old England's History, a.d.', 827. 



WHEN I was very, very little, I hated history more than 
all my other lessons put together, because I had 
to learn it out of a horrid little book, called some- 
body's "Outlines of English History"; and it 
seemed to be all the names of the kings and dates of battles, 
and, believing it to be nothing else, I hated it accordingly. 

I hope you do not think anything so foolish, because, 
really, history is a story, a story of things that happened to 
real live people in England — which is the motherland of all 
our boys and girls — years ago ; and the things that are hap- 
pening here and now, and that are put in the newspapers, will 
be history for little children one of these days. 



22 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

The people in those old times were the same kind of 
people who live now. Mothers loved their children then, and 
fathers worked for them, just as mothers and fathers do now, 
and children then were good or bad, as the case might be, 
just as little children are now. And the people you read 
about in history were real live people, who were good and 
bad, and glad and sorry, just as people are now-a-days. 

You know that if you were to set out on a journey from one 
end of England to another, wherever you went, through fields 
and woods and lanes, you would still be in the kingdom of 
King Edward. When you travel through Canada from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific, and then cross the great ocean to 
Australia, and, perchance, go on to India, and back home 
by the Suez Canal, you are all the time in the larger Empire 
of good King Edward. 

But once upon a time, hundreds of years ago, if a 
child had set out to ride on horseback, he might have 
begun his ride in the morning in one kingdom, and finished 
it in the evening in another, because England was not one 
great kingdom then as it is now, but was divided up into 
seven pieces, with a king to look after each, and these seven 
kings were always quarreling with each other and trying to 
take each other's kingdom away, just as you might see seven 
naughty children, each with a plot of garden, trying to take 
each other's gardens and spoiling each other's flowers in their 
wicked quarrels. 

But presently (a. d. 827) came one King, namea Egbert, 
who was stronger than all the others ; so he managed to 
put himself at the head of all the kingdoms, and he was 
the first King of all England. But though he had got the 
other kings to give in to him, he did not have at all a peaceful 
time. There were some very fierce wild pirates, called Danes, 



ALFRED THE GREAT 



who used to come sailing across the North Sea in ships with 
carved swans' heads at the prow, and hundreds of fighting 
men aboard. Their own country was bleak and desolate, and 
they were greedy and wanted the pleasant English land. So 
they used to come and land in all sorts of places along the 
sea-shore, and then they would march across the fields and 
kill the peaceful farmers, and set fire to their houses, and take 
their sheep and cows. Or sometimes they would drive them 
out, and live in the farm- 
houses themselves. Of 
course, the English peo- 
ple were not going to 
stand this ; so they were 
always fighting to drive 
the Danes away when 
they came here. 

Egbert's son allowed 
the Danes to 
grow very strong 
in England, and 
when he died he 
left several sons 




KING ALFRED LEARNING TO READ. 



like the kings in the fairy tales ; and the first of these princes 
was made King, but he could not beat the Danes, and then 
the second one was made King, but he could not beat the 
Danes. In the fairy tales, you know, it is always the youngest 
prince who has all the good fortune, and in this story the same 
thing happened. This prince did what none of his brothers 
could do. He drove out the Danes from England, and gave 
his people a chance of being quiet and happy and good. His 
name was Alfred. This happened about a. d., 871. 

Like most great men, this King Alfred had a good 



24 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

mother. She used to read to him, when he was little, out of 
a great book with gold and precious stones on the cover, and 
inside beautiful songs and poetry. And one day she said to 
the young princes, who were all very fond of being read to 
out of this splendid book — 

"Since you like the book so much, I will give it to the 
one who is first able to read it, and to say all the poetry in it 
by heart." 

The eldest prince tried to learn it, but I suppose he did 
not try hard enough ; and the other princes tried, but I fear 
they were too lazy. But you may be quite sure the youngest 
prince did the right thing. He learnt to read, and then he 
set to work to learn the poems by heart ; and it was a proud 
day for him and for the Queen when he was able to say all 
the beautiful poetry to her. She put the book into his hands 
for his very own, and they kissed each other with tears of 
pride and pleasure. 

You must not suppose that King Alfred drove out the 
Danes without much trouble, much thought, and much hard 
work. Trouble, thought, and hard work are the only three 
spells the fairies have left us, so of course he had to use them. 
He was made King just after the Danes had gained a great 
victory, and for the first eight years of his reign he was fight- 
ing them continually. At one time they had conquered 
almost the whole of England, and they would have killed 
Alfred if they could have found him. 

You know, a wise prince always disguises himself when 
danger becomes very great. So Alfred disguised himself as 
a farm laborer, and went to live with a farmer, who used to 
make him feed the beasts and help about the farm, and had 
no idea that this laborer was the great King himself. 

One day the farmer's wife went out — perhaps she went 



ALFRED THE GREAT 



25 



out to milk the cows ; at any rate it was some important busi- 
ness — and she had made some cakes for supper, and she saw 
Alfred sitting idle in the kitchen, so she asked him to look 
after the cakes, to see they did not burn. Alfred said he 
would. But he had just received some news about the 
Danes, and he was thinking, and thinking and thinking over 
this, and he forgot all about the cakes, and when the farmer's 
wife came in she found them burnt black as coal. 




' OH, YOU SILLY, GREEDY FELLOW! " 



" Oh, you silly, greedy fellow," she said, "you can eat 
cakes fast enough; but you can't even take the trouble to 
bake them when other people take the trouble to make them 
for you." 

And I have heard that she even slapped his face. He 
bore it all very patiently. 

"I am very sorry," he said, "but I was thinking of 
other things." 

Just at that moment her husband came in followed by 
several strangers, and, to the good woman's astonishment, 



26 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

they all fell on their knees and greeted her husband's laborer 
as their King. 

"We have beaten the Danes," they said, " and everyone 
is asking where is King Alfred ? You must come back 
with us." 

"Forgive me," cried the woman. "I didn't think of 
your being the King." 

"Forgive me," said Alfred, kindly. "I didn't think of 
your cakes being burnt." 

The Danes had more fighting men than Alfred ; so he 
was obliged to be very cautious and wise, or he could never 
have beaten them at all. In those days very few people could 
read; and the evenings used to seem very long sometimes, so 
that anybody who could tell a story or sing a song was made 
much of, and some people made it their trade to go about 
singing songs and telling stories and making jokes to amuse 
people who could not sing songs or tell stories or make jokes 
themselves. These were called gleemen, and wherever they 
went they were always welcomed and put at a good place at 
table, and treated with respect and kindness ; and in time of 
war no one ever killed a gleeman, so they could always feel 
quite safe whatever was going on. 

Now Alfred once wanted to know how many Danes 
there were in a certain Danish camp, and whether they were 
too strong for him to beat. So he disguised himself as a 
gleeman and took a harp, for his mother had taught him to- 
sing and play very prettily, and he went and sang songs to 
the Danes and told stories to them. But all the time he kept 
his eyes open, and found out all he wanted to know. And 
he saw that the Danes were not expecting to be attacked 
by the English people, so that, instead of keeping watch, 
they were feasting and drinking and playing all their time. 



ALFRED THE GREAT 



27 



Then he went back to his own soldiers, and they crept up to 
the Danish camp and fell upon it while the Danes were 
feasting and making merry, and as the Danes were not expect- 
ing a fight, the English were easily able to get much the best 
of it. 

At last, after many fights, King Alfred managed to make 
peace with the Danes, and then he settled down to see what 
he could do for his own people. He saw that if he was to 
keep out the wicked Danes he must be able to fight them by 
sea as well as by land. So he learned how to build ships 
and taught his people ./■ 

how to build them, and 
that was the beginning 
of the great English 
navy, which you ought 
to be proud of if you 
are big enough to read 
this book. Alfred was 
wise enough to see that 



knowledge 



is 




pOWer, 1N JHQ5E. DAYS. Bur HE HADE. A CL°CK OUT OF 

ACANOLE- 



and, as he wanted his 
people to be strong, he tried to make them learned. He built 
schools, and at University College, Oxford, there are people that 
will tell you that that college was founded by Alfred the Great. 
He used to divide up his time very carefully, giving part 
to study and part to settling disputes among his people, and 
part to his shipbuilding and his other duties. They had no 
clocks and watches in those days, and he used sometimes to 
get so interested in his work as to forget that it was time to 
leave it and go on to something else, just as you do some- 
times when you get so interested in a game of rounders that 
you forget that it is time to go on with your lessons. The 



28 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

idea of a clock never entered into Alfred's head, at least not 
a clock with wheels, and hands on its face, but he was so 
clever that her made a clock out of a candle. He painted 
rines of different colours round the candle, and when the 
candle had burnt down to the first ring it was half an hour 
gone, and when it was burnt to the next ring it was another 
half-hour, and so on. So he could tell exactly how the time went. 




He was called Alfred the Great, and no king has better 
deserved such a title. 

"So long as I have lived," he said, "I have striven to 
live worthily." And he longed, above all things, to leave 
"to the men that came after a remembrance of him in good 
works." 

He did many good and wise things, but the best and 
wisest thing he ever did was to begin to write the History of 



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ALFRED THE GREAT 



29 



England. There had been English poems before this, but no 
English stories that were not written in poetry. So that 
Alfred's book was the first of all the thousands and thousands 
of English books that you see on the shelves of the big libra- 
ries. His book is generally called the Saxon Chronicle, and 
was added to by other people after his death. 

So many abbeys had been burnt and the monks killed 
by the Danes, that there were hardly any books to be had, 
or scholars to read them. King Alfred invited learned men 
from abroad, and wrote and translated books himself for 
them ; and he had a school in his house, where he made the 
young nobles learn with 
his own sons. He built 
up the churches, and 
gave also to the poor ; 
and he was always ready ^^j 
to hear the troubles of 
any poor man. Though 
he was always working 
so hard, he had a disease 
that used to cause him 
terrible pain almost every day. His last years were less 
peaceful than the middle ones of his reign, for the Danes tried 
to come again ; but he beat them off by his ships at sea, and 
when he died at fifty-two years old, in the year 901, he left 
England at rest and quiet, and we always think of him as one 
of the greatest and best kings who ever reigned in England, 
or in any other country. As long as his children after him and 
his people went on in the good way he had taught them, all 
prospered with them, and no enemies hurt them ; and this 
was all through the reigns of his son, his grandson, and great- 
grandsons. Their council of great men was called by a long 




OLD DANISH ARMS. 



3 o ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

word that is in our EngUsh, "Wise Men's Meeting," and 
there they settled the affairs of the kingdom. The king's 
wife was not called queen, but lady, and what do you think 
lady means? It means "loaf-giver" — giver of bread to her 
household and the poor. So a lady's great work is to be 
charitable. 

Alfred made a number of wise laws. It is believed that it 
was he who first ordained that an Englishman should be tried 
not only by a judge but also by a jury of people like himself. 

Though he had fought bravely when fighting was needed 
to defend his kingdom, yet he loved peace and all the arts of 
peace. He loved justice and kindness, and little children; 
and all folk loved and wept for him when he died, because he 
was a good King who had always striven to live worthily, 
that is to say, he had always tried to be good. 

His last words to his son, just before he died, were these 
— "It is just that the English people should be as free as 
their own thoughts." 

You must not think that this means that the English peo- 
ple should be free to think as they like or to do as they like. 
What it means is, that an Englishman and his descendants 
should be as free to do good deeds as he is to think good 
thouehts. 




England in the Middle Ages. 



ATHELSTAN, the son of Edward the Elder, and 
grandson of Alfred the Great, succeeded his father. 
He reigned only fifteen years ; but he remembered 
the glory of his grandfather, the great Alfred, and 
governed England well. He reduced the turbulent people 
of Wales, and obliged them to pay him a tribute in money, 
and in cattle, and to send him their best hawks and hounds. 
He was victorious over the Cornish men, who were not yet 
quiet under the Saxon government. He restored such of the 
old laws as were good, and had fallen into disuse ; made 
some wise new laws, and took care of the poor and weak. 
A strong alliance, made against him by Anlaf, a Danish 
prince, Constantine King of the Scots, and the people of 
North Wales he broke and defeated in one great battle, long 
famous for the vast numbers slain in it. After that, he had a 
quiet reign ; the lords and ladies about him had leisure to 
become polite and agreeable ; and foreign princes were glad 
(as they have sometimes been since) to come to England on 
visits to the English court. 



32 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

When Athelstan died, at forty-seven years old, his 
brother Edmund, who was only eighteen, became king. He 
was the first of six boy-kings, as you will presently know. 

They called him the Magnificent, because he showed a 
taste for improvement and refinement. But he was beset by 
the Danes, and had a short and troubled reign, which came 
to a troubled end. One night, when he was feasting in his 
hall, and had eaten much and drunk deep, he saw among the 
company a noted robber named Leof, who had been banished 
from England. Made very angry by the boldness of this 
man, the king turned to his cup-bearer, and said : " There is 
a robber sitting at the table yonder, who, for his crimes, is an 
outlaw in the land, — a hunted wolf, whose life any man may 
take, at any time. Command that robber to depart!" "I 
will not depart ! " said Leof. "No?" cried the king. "No, 
by the Lord ! " said Leof. Upon that the king rose from his 
seat, and, making passionately at the robber, and seizing him 
by his long hair, tried to throw him down. But the robber 
had a dagger underneath his cloak, and in the scuffle stabbed 
the king to death. That done, he set his back against the wall, 
and fought so desperately, that, although he was soon cut to 
pieces by the king's armed men, and the wall and pavement 
were splashed with his blood, yet it was not before he had 
killed and wounded many of them. You may imagine what 
rough lives the kings of those times led, when one of them 
could struggle, half drunk, with a public robber in his own 
dining-hall, and be stabbed in presence of the company who 
ate and drank with him. 

Then succeeded the boy-king Edred, who was weak and 
sickly in body, but of a strong mind. And his armies fought 
the Northmen, — the Danes and Norwegians, or the sea-kings, 



SIX BOY-KINGS 



33 



as they were called, — and beat them for the time. And in 
nine years Edred died, and passed away. 

Then came the boy-king Edwy, fifteen years of age ; but 
the real king, who had the real power, was a monk named 
Dunstan, — a clever priest, a little mad, and not a little proud 
and cruel. 

Dunstan was then Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, whither 










EDWY, THE BOY-KING. 



the body of King Edmund the Magnificent was carried to be 
buried. While yet a boy, he had got out of his bed one night 
(being then in a fever), and walked about Glastonbury Church 
when it was under repair ; and because he did not tumble off 
some scaffolds that were there, and break his neck, it was 
reported that he had been shown over the building by an angel. 
He had also made a harp that was said to play of itself; which 
it very likely did, as yEolian harps, which are played by the 



34 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

wind, and are understood now, always do. For these wonders 
he had been once denounced by his enemies, who were jealous 
of his favor with the late King Athelstan, as a magician; and 
he had been waylaid, bound hand and foot, and thrown into a 
marsh. But he got out again, somehow, to cause a great deal 
of trouble yet. 

The priests of those days were, generally, the only 
scholars. They were learned in many things. Having to 
make their own convents and monasteries on uncultivated 
grounds that were granted to them by the Crown, it was 
necessary that they should be good farmers and good garden- 
ers, or their lands would have been too poor to support them. 
For the decoration of the chapels where they prayed, and for 
the comfort of the refectories where they ate and drank, it was 
necessary that there should be good carpenters, good smiths, 
good painters among them. For their greater safety in sick- 
ness and accident, living alone by themselves in solitary 
places, it was necessary that they should study the virtues of 
plants and herbs, and should know how to dress cuts, burns, 
scalds, and bruises, and how to set broken limbs. Accord- 
ingly, they taught themselves, and one another, a great variety 
of useful arts ; and became skillful in agriculture, medicine, 
surgery, and handicraft. And when they wanted the aid of 
any little piece of machinery, which would be simple enough 
now, but was marvelous then, to impose a trick upon the 
poor peasants, they knew very well how to make it ; and did 
make it many a time and often, I have no doubt. 

Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, was one of the 
most sagacious of these monks. He was an ingenious smith, 
and worked at a forge in his little cell. This cell was made 
too short to admit of his lying at full length when he went to 



SIX BOY-KINGS 



35 



sleep — as if that did any good to anybody ! — and he used to 
tell the most extraordinary lies about demons and spirits, 
who, he said, came there to persecute him. For instance, he 
related that, one day when he was at work, the devil, in the 
form of a beautiful youth, looked in at the little window, and 
tried to tempt him to 
lead a life of idle 
pleasure ; whereupon, 
having his pincers in 
the fire, red hot, he 
seized the devil by the 
nose, and put him to 
such pain, that his bel- 
lowings were heard for 
miles and miles. Some 
people are inclined to 
think this nonsense a 
part of Dunstan's mad- 
ness (for his head never 
quite recovered the 
fever), but I think not. 
I observe that it in- 
d u c e d the ignorant 
people to consider him 
a holy man, and that 
it made him very pow- 
erful, which was exactly what he always wanted to be. 
On the day of the coronation of the handsome boy-king 
Edwy, it was remarked by Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury 
(who was a Dane by birth), that the king quietly left the 
coronation feast, while all the company was there. Odo, much 
displeased, sent his friend Dunstan to seek him. Dunstan 




36 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

finding him in the company of his beautiful young wife Elgiva, 
and her mother Ethelgiva, a good and virtuous lady, not only 
grossly abused them, but dragged the young king back into 
the feasting-hall by force. Some, again, think Dunstan did 
this because the young king's fair wife was his own cousin, 
and the monks objected to people marrying their own cousins ; 
but I believe he did it because he was an imperious, audacious, 
ill-conditioned priest, who, having loved a young lady him- 
self before he became a sour monk, hated all love now, and 
everything belonging to it. 

The young king was quite old enough to feel this insult. 
Dunstan had been treasurer in the last reign, and he soon 
charged Dunstan with having taken some of the last king's 
money. The Glastonbury Abbot fled to Belgium (very nar- 
rowly escaping some pursuers who were sent to put out his 
eyes, as you will wish they had, when you read what follows), 
and his abbey was given to priests who were married ; whom 
he always, both before and afterwards, opposed. But he 
quickly conspired with his friend, Odo the Dane, to set up 
the king's young brother, Edgar, as his rival for the throne ; 
not content with this revenge, he caused the beautiful queen 
Elgiva, though a lovely girl of only seventeen or eighteen, 
to be stolen from one of the Royal Palaces, branded in the 
cheek with a red-hot iron, and sold into slavery in Ireland. 
But the Irish people pitied and befriended her ; and they said, 
" Let us restore the girl-queen to the boy-king, and make the 
young lovers happy!" And they cured her of her cruel 
wound, and sent her home as beautiful as before. But the 
villain, Dunstan, and that other villain, Odo, caused her to be 
waylaid at Gloucester as she was joyfully hurrying to join her 
husband, and to be hacked and hewn with swords, and to be 
barbarously maimed and lamed, and left to die. When Edwy 



SIX BOY-KINGS 37 

the Fair (his people called him so because he was so young 
and handsome) heard of her dreadful fate, he died of a broken 
heart ; and so the pitiful story of the poor young wife and 
husband ends. Ah ! Better to be two cottagers in these bet- 
ter times, than king and queen of England in those bad days, 
though never so fair ! 

Then came the boy-king Edgar, called the Peaceful, 
fifteen years old. Dunstan being still the real king, drove 
all married priests out of the monasteries and abbeys, and 
replaced them by solitary monks like himself, of the rigid 
order called the Benedictines. He made himself Archbishop 
of Canterbury, for his greater glory ; and exercised such power 
over the neighboring British princes, and so collected them 
about the king, that once, when the king held the court at 
Chester, and went on the River Dee to visit the monastery of 
St. John, the eight oars of his boat were pulled (as the people 
used to delight in relating in stories and songs) by eight 
crowned kings, and steered by the king of England. As 
Edgar was very obedient to Dunstan and the monks, they 
took great pains to represent him as the best of kings ; but he 
was really profligate, debauched, and vicious. • He once forc- 
ibly carried off a young lady from the convent at Wilton ; and 
Dunstan, pretending to be very much shocked, condemned 
him not to wear his crown upon his head for seven years, no 
great punishment, I dare say, as it can hardly have been a 
more comfortable ornament to wear than a stewpan without a 
handle. His marriage with his second wife, Elfrida, is one of 
the worst events of his reign. Hearing of the beauty of this 
lady, he despatched his favorite courtier, Athelwold, " to her 
father's castle in Devonshire, to see if she were really as 
charming as fame reported. Now, she was so exceedingly 
beautiful, that Athelwold fell in love with her himself, and 



P,H ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

married her; but he told the king that she was only rich, not 
handsome. The king, suspecting the truth when they came 
home, resolved to pay the newly married couple a visit; and 
suddenly told A.thelwold to prepare for his immediate coming. 
Athelwold, terrified, confessed to his young wife what he had 
said and done, and implored her to disguise her beauty by some 
u^ly dress or .illy manner, that he might be safe from the 
king's anger. She promised that she would ; hut she was a 

proud woman, who WOUld far rather have heen a queen than 
the wife of a COUrtier, She dressed herself in her best dress, 
and adorned herself with her richest jewels ; and when the 

king came presently, he discovered the cheat. So he caused 

his false friend Alhelwold to he murdered in a wood, :um\ 
married his widow, this had Elfrida. Six or seven years 
afterwards he died, and was hnried (as if he had heen .ill 
that Hie monks Said he was) in the abbey of ( iiastonbury, 
which he— or Dunstan for him — had much enriched. 

England, in one part of this reign, was so troubled by 
wolves, which, driven outof the open country, hid themselves 
in the mountains of Wales, when they were not attacking 

travelers and animals, that the tribute payable by the Welsh 
people was forgiven them, on condition of their producing 
every year three hundred wolves' heads. And the Welsh- 
men weie so sharp upon the wolves, to save their money, 
that in four years there was not a wolf left. 

Then came the boy-king Edward, called the Martyr, from 
die manner of his death. Elfrida had a son, named Ethelred, 

for whom she claimed (he throne ; but I hmstan did not choose 

to favor him, and he made Edward king. The boy was hunt- 
ing one day down in Dorsetshire, when he rode near to Corfe 
< astle, where Elfrida and Ethelred lived. Wishing to sec: 

them kindly, he rode away from his attendants, and galloped 



SIX BOY-KINGS 



39 



to the castle gate, where he arrived at twilight, and blew his 
hunting-horn. "Von are welcome, dear king," said Elfrida, 
coming out with her brightest smiles. "Pray you dismount 
and cnicr." "Not. so, dear madam," said the king. "My 
company will miss me, and fear that I have met with some 
harm. Please you to give me a i up of wine, that I may drink 
here in the saddle to you and to my little brother, and so 
ride away with the good speed I have made in riding here." 
Elfrida, going in to bring the wine, whispered to an armed 
servant, one of her attendants, who stole out of the darkening 
gate w ay , and 
1 1 ept round be- 
hind the king's 
horse. A 1 , the 
king raised the 
cup to his lips, 
say inj.';, ' I lealth I' 
to the wicked 
woman who was 
smiling on him, 
and to his inno- 
< ent brother 
whose hand she held in hers, and who was only ten years 
old, this armed man made a spring and stabbed him in 
the back. He dropped the cup and spurred his horsi away; 
but, soon fainting with loss of blood, dropped from the saddle, 
and, in his fall, entangled one of his feet in the stirrup. 1 he 
li ightened horse dashed on ; trailing his rider's < ui Is upon the 
ground; dragging his smooth young face through ruts, and 
stones, and briers, and fallen leaves, and mud ; until the 
hunters, tracking the animal's course by the king's blood, 
caught his bridle, and released his disfigured body. 




' Hill! ItOHIM'.l/ I MAT 1. 1 II'. WOULD." 



4 o ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

Then came the sixth and last of the boy-kings, Ethelred, 
whom Elfrida, when he cried out at the sight of his murdered 
brother riding away from the castle gate, unmercifully beat 
with a torch which she snatched from one of the attendants. 
The people so disliked this boy, on account of his cruel 
mother, and the murder she had done to promote him, that 
Dunstan would not have had him for king, but would have 
made Edgitha, the daughter of the dead King Edgar, and of 
the lady whom he stole out of the convent at Wilton, Queen 
of England, if she would have consented. But she knew the 
stories of the youthful kings too well, and would not be per- 
suaded from the convent where she lived in peace ; so Dun- 
stan put Ethelred on the throne, having no one else to put 
there, and gave him the nickname of " The Unready " — know- 
ing that he wanted resolution and firmness. 

At first, Elfrida possessed great influence over the young 
king, but as he grew older and came of age, her influence 
declined. The infamous woman, not having it in her power 
to do any more evil, then retired from court, and, according 
to the fashion of the time, built churches and monasteries, 
to expiate her guilt. As if a church, with a steeple reaching 
to the very stars, would have been any sign of true repentance 
for the blood of the poor boy, whose murdered form was 
trailed at his horse's heels ! As if she could have buried her 
wickedness beneath the senseless stones of the whole world, 
piled up one upon another, for the monks to live in ! 

About the ninth or tenth year of this reign, Dunstan 
died. He was growing old then, but was as stern and artful 
as ever. Two circumstances that happened in connection 
with him, in this reign of Ethelred, made a great noise. 
Once, he was present at a meeting of the Church, when 
the question was discussed whether priests should have 



SIX BOY-KINGS 



4i 



permission to marry, and, as he sat with his head hung down, 
apparently thinking about it, a voice seemed to come out of 
a crucifix in the room, and warn the meeting to be of his 
opinion. This was some juggling of Dunstan's, and was 
probably his own voice disguised. But he played off a worse 
juggle than that, soon afterwards ; for, another meeting being 
held on the same subject, and he and his supporters being 
seated on one side of a great room, and their opponents on 
. the other, he rose and said, "To Christ himself, as Judge, do 
I commit this cause!" Immediately on these words being 
spoken, the floor where the opposite party sat gave way ; some 
were killed and 
many wounded. 
You may be 
pretty sure it had 
been weakened 
under Dunstan's 
directions, and 
that it fell at 
Dunstan's sig- 
nal. His part of 
the floor did not go down 
workman for that. 

Ethelred the Unready was glad enough, I dare say, to be 
rid of this holy saint ; but, left to himself, he was a poor weak 
king, and his reign was a reign of defeat and shame. The 
restless Danes, led by Sweyn, a son of the king of Denmark, 
who had quarreled with his father, and had been banished 
from home, again came into England, and year after year 
attacked and despoiled large towns. To coax these sea-kings 
away, the weak Ethelred paid them money; but the more 
money he paid, the more money the Danes wanted. At first 




No, no ! He was too good a 



42 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

he gave them ten thousand pounds ; on their next invasion, 
sixteen thousand pounds ; on their next invasion, four-and- 
twenty thousand pounds, to pay which large sums, the unfor- 
tunate English people were heavily taxed. But as the Danes 
still came back and wanted more, he thought it would be a 
good plan to marry into some powerful foreign family that 
would help him with soldiers. So in the year 1002, he courted 
and married Emma, the sister of Richard, Duke of Normandy, 
— a lady who was called the Flower of Normandy. 

And now a terrible deed was done in England, the like 
of which was never done on English ground before or since. 
On the 13th of November, in pursuance of secret instructions 
sent by the king over the whole country, the inhabitants of 
every town and city armed, and murdered all the Danes who 
were their neighbors. Young and old, babies and soldiers, 
men and women, — every Dane was killed. No doubt there 
were among them many ferocious men, who had done the 
English great wrong, and whose pride and insolence, in swag- 
gering in the houses of the English, and insulting their 
wives and daughters, had become unbearable ; but, no doubt, 
there were also among them many peaceful Christian Danes, 
who had married English women, and become like English 
men. They were all slain, even to Gunhilda, the sister, of 
the King of Denmark, married to an English lord ; who was 
first obliged to see the murder of her husband and her child, 
and then was killed herself. 

When the king of the sea-kings heard of this deed 
of blood, he swore that he would have a great revenge. He 
raised an army, and a mightier fleet of ships than ever yet 
had sailed to England. And in all his army there was not 
a slave nor an old man ; but every soldier was a free man, 
and the son of a free man, and in the prime of life, and sworn 



SIX BOY-KINGS 



43 



to be revenged upon the English nation, for the massacre of 
that dread 13th of November, when his countrymen and 
countrywomen, and the little children whom they loved, were 
killed by fire and sword. And so the sea-kings came to 
England in many great ships, each bearing the flag of its own 
commander. Golden eagles, ravens, dragons, dolphins, beasts 
of prey, threatened England from the prows of those ships, 
as they came onward through the water ; and were reflected 
in the shining shields that hung upon their sides. The ship 
that bore the standard of the king of the sea-kings was carved 
and painted like a 
mighty serpent; 
and the king in his 
anger prayed that 
the gods in whom 
he trusted might 
all desert him, if 
his serpent did not 
strike its fangs into 
England's heart. 

And indeed it 
did. For, the great 
army landing from the great fleet, near Exeter, went forward, 
laying England waste, and striking their lances in the earth as 
they advanced, or throwing them into rivers, in token of their 
making all the island theirs. In remembrance of the black 
November night when the Danes were murdered, wheresoever 
the invaders came, they made the Saxons prepare and spread 
for them great feasts ; and when they had eaten those feasts, and 
had drunk a curse to England with wild rejoicings, they drew 
their swords, and killed their Saxon entertainers, and marched 
on. For six long years they carried on this war ; burning 




'DO WITH ME WHAT YOU PLEASE.' 



44 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

the crops, farm-houses, barns, mills, granaries ; killing the 
laborers in the fields ; preventing the seed from being sown 
in the ground ; causing famine and starvation ; leaving only- 
heaps of ruin and smoking ashes, where they had found rich 
towns. To crown this misery English officers and men 
deserted, and even the favorites of Ethelred the Unready, 
becoming traitors, seized many of the English ships, turned 
pirates against their own country, and aided by a storm occa- 
sioned the loss of nearly the whole English navy. 

There was but one man of note, at this miserable pass, 
who was true to his country and the feeble king. He was a 
priest, and a brave one. For twenty days, the Archbishop of 
Canterbury defended that city against its Danish besiegers ; 
and when a traitor in the town threw the gates open and 
admitted them, he said, in chains, "I will not buy my life 
with money that must be extorted from the suffering people. 
Do with me what you please ! " Again and again, he steadily 
refused to purchase his release with gold wrung from the poor. 

At last, the Danes being tired of this, and being assem- 
bled at a drunken merry-making, had him brought into the 
feasting-hall. 

"Now, Bishop," they said, "we want gold." 

He looked round on the crowd of angry faces, — from the 
shaggy beards close to him, to the shaggy beards against the 
walls, where men were mounted on tables and forms to see 
him over the heads of others, — and he knew that his time was 
come. 

" I have no gold," said he. 

"Get it, bishop !" they all thundered. 

"That I have often told you I will not," said he. 

They gathered closer round him, threatening; but he 
stood unmoved. Then one man struck him ; then another ; 



SIX BOY-KINGS 45 

then a cursing soldier picked up from a heap in the corner of 
the hall, where fragments had been rudely thrown at dinner, 
a great ox-bone, and cast it at his face, from which the blood 
came spurting forth ; then others ran to the same heap, and 
knocked him down with other bones, and bruised and bat- 
tered him ; until one soldier whom he baptized (willing, as 
I hope for the sake of that soldier's soul, to shorten the suffer- 
ings of the good man) struck him dead with his battle-axe. 

If Ethelred had had the heart to emulate the courage of 
this noble archbishop, he might have done something yet. 
But he paid the Danes forty-eight thousand pounds, instead ; 
and gained so little by the cowardly act, that Sweyn soon 
afterwards came over to subdue all England. So broken was 
the attachment of the English people by this time, to their 
incapable king and their forlorn country, which could not 
protect them, that they welcomed Sweyn on all sides as a 
deliverer. London faithfully stood out as long as the king 
was within its walls ; but when he sneaked away, it also wel- 
comed the Dane. Then all was over; and the king took 
refuge abroad with the Duke of Normandy, who had already 
given shelter to the king's wife (once the Flower of that coun- 
try), and to her children. 

Still the English people, in spite of their sad sufferings, 
could not quite forget the great King Alfred and the Saxon 
race. When Sweyn died suddenly, in little more than a 
month after he had been proclaimed king of England, they 
generously sent to Ethelred, to say that they would have him 
for their king again, "if he would only govern them better 
than he had governed them before." The Unready, instead 
of coming himself, sent Edward, one of his sons, to make 
promises for him. At last, he followed, and the English 
declared him king. The Danes declared Canute, the son of 



46 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

Sweyn, king. Thus, direful war began again, and lasted for 
three years, when the Unready died. And I know of nothing 
better that he did, in all his reign of eight and thirty years. 

Was Canute to be king now ? Not over the Saxons, 
they said ; they must have Edmund, one of the sons of the 
Unready, who was surnamed Ironside, because of his strength 
and stature. Edmund and Canute thereupon fell to, and 
fought five battles — O unhappy England, what a fighting- 
ground it was ! — and then Ironside, who was a big man, 
proposed to Canute, who was a little man, that they two 
should fight it out in single combat. If Canute had been the 
big man, he would probably have said yes, but, being the 
little man, he decidedly said no. However, he declared that 
he was willing to divide the kingdom — to take all that lay 
north of Watling Street, as the old Roman military road from 
Dover to Chester was called, and to give Ironside all that lay 
south of it. Most men being weary of so much bloodshed, 
this was done. But Canute soon became sole King of Eng- 
land ; for Ironside died suddenly within two months. Some 
think that he was killed, and killed by Canute's orders. No 
one knows. 




8Bp 

And What Happened to Four of Them. 




BECAUSE boys had royal blood in their veins this did 
not make them good. In fact, they often were diso- 
bedient and wicked. Henry II was the fourth king 
after William the Conqueror, and reigned from 1 154 
to 1 189, a period of thirty-five years. This was a good 
long time for one king. He was the first king of the Plan- 
tagenet family, also called the House of Anjou. The mean- 
ing of Plantagenet I shall explain further on. He was a very 
clever, brisk, spirited man, who hardly ever sat down, but was 
always going from place to place, and who would let no one 
disobey him. A rather unpleasant sort of a man he was. He 
kept everybody in order, pulled down almost all the castles 
the wicked barons had built, and would not let the barons ill- 
treat the people. The Normans who spoke and thought in 
the French language, and who had come over with William 
the Conqueror, were now quite English in their feelings. 
French was, however, chiefly spoken at court. King Henry 
was really a Frenchman, and he married a French wife, 

47 



4 8 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



Eleanor, the lady of Aquitaine, one of the four ancient divi- 
sions of France, now forming two departments of that country. 

Henry was a most powerful king; but his latter years 
were very unhappy. His wife was not a good woman, and 
her four sons, were all disobedient and rebellious. 

Henry, now aged eighteen — his secret crowning of whom 
had given such offence to Thomas a Becket; Richard, aged 
sixteen ; Geoffrey, fifteen ; and John, his favorite, a young 
boy, whom the courtiers named Lackland, because he had no 




inheritance, but to whom the king meant to give the Lordship 
of Ireland. All these misguided boys, in their turn, were 
unnatural sons to him, and unnatural brothers to each other. 
Prince Henry, stimulated by the French king, and by his bad 
mother, Queen Eleanor, began the undutiful history. 

First, he demanded that his young wife Margaret, the 
French king's daughter, should be crowned as well as he. 
His father, the king, consented, and it was done. It was no 
sooner done, than he demanded to have a part of his father's 



THE DISOBEDIENT PRINCES 49 

dominions, during his father's life. This being refused, he 
made off from his father in the night, with his bad heart full 
of bitterness, and took refuge at the French king's court. 
Within a day or two, his brothers, Richard and Geoffrey, fol- 
lowed. Their mother tried to join them — escaping in men's 
clothes — but she was seized by King Henry's men and immured 
in prison, where she lay, deservedly, for sixteen years. Every 
day, however, some grasping English noblemen, to whom the 
king's protection of his people from their avarice and oppres- 
sion had given offence, deserted him and joined the princes. 
Every day, he heard some fresh intelligence of the princes 
levying armies against him ; of Prince Henry's wearing a 
crown before his own ambassadors at the French court, and 
being called the Junior King of England ; of all the princes 
swearing never to make peace with him, their father, without 
the consent and approval of the barons of France. But, with 
his fortitude and energy unshaken, King Henry met the shock 
of these disasters with a resolved and cheerful face. He called 
upon all royal fathers, who had sons, to help him, for his 
cause_was theirs ; he hired, out of his riches, twenty thousand 
men to fight the false French king, who stirred his own blood 
against him ; and he carried on the war with such vigor, that 
Louis soon proposed a conference to treat for peace. 

The conference was held beneath an old wide-spreading 
green elm tree, upon a plain in France. It led to nothing. 
The war recommenced. Prince Richard began his fighting 
career, by leading an army against his father ; but his father 
beat him and his army back ; and thousands of his men would 
have rued the day in which they fought in such a wicked 
cause, had not the king received news of an invasion of Eng- 
land by the Scots, and promptly come home through a great 
storm to repress it. And whether he really began to fear that 



50 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

he suffered these troubles because a Becket, the stern priest, 
had been murdered by his command, or whether he wished to 
rise in the favor of the Pope, who had now declared a Becket 
to be a saint, or in the favor of his own people, of whom many 
believed that even a Becket's senseless tomb could work 
miracles, I don't know; but the king no sooner landed in 
England than he went straight to Canterbury ; and when he 
came within sight of the distant Cathedral, he dismounted 
from his horse, took off his shoes, and walked with bare and 
bleeding feet to a Becket's grave. There, he lay down on the 
ground, lamenting, in the presence of many people ; and 
by-and-by he went into the Chapter House, and, removing 
his clothes from his back and shoulders, submitted himself to 
be beaten with knotted cords (not beaten very hard, I dare 
say), by eighty priests, one after another. It chanced that on 
the very day when the king made this curious exhibition of 
himself, a complete victory was obtained over the Scots; 
which very much delighted the priests, who said that it was 
won because of his great example of repentance. For the 
priests in general had found out, since a Becket's death, that 
they admired him of all things — though they had hated him 
very cordially when he was alive. 

The Earl of Flanders, who was at the head of the base 
conspiracy of the king's undutiful sons, and their foreign 
friends, took the opportunity of the king being thus employed 
at home, to lay siege to Rouen, the capital of Normandy. But 
the king, who was extraordinarily quick and active in all his 
movements, was at Rouen, too, before it was supposed 
possible that he could have left England ; and there he so 
defeated the said Earl of Flanders, that the conspirators pro- 
posed peace, and his bad sons Henry and Geoffrey submitted. 



THE DISOBEDIENT PRINCES 



5i 



Richard resisted for six weeks ; but, being beaten out of castle 
after castle, and his followers deserting him, he at last sub- 
mitted too, and his father forgave him. 

To forgive these unworthy princes was only to afford 
them breathing time for new acts of disobedience. They were 
so false, disloyal, and dishonorable, that they were no more 
to be trusted than common thieves. In the very next year, 
Prince Henry rebelled again, and was again forgiven. In 
eight years more, Prince Richard rebelled against his elder 
brother ; and Prince Geoffrey infamously said that the brothers 
could never agree well 
together, unless they 
were united against 
their father. In the 
very next year after 
their reconciliation by 
the king, Prince Henry 
again rebelled against 
his father ; and again 
submitted, swearing to 
be true; and was 
again forgiven ; and again rebelled with Geoffrey, and so on. 

But the end of this perfidious prince was come. He fell 
sick at a French town ; and his conscience terribly reproach- 
ing him with his baseness, he sent messengers to the king his 
father, imploring him to come and see him, and to forgive 
him for the last time on his bed of death. The generous 
king, who had a royal and forgiving mind towards his chil- 
dren always, would have gone ; but this prince had been so 
unnatural, that the noblemen about the king suspected treach- 
ery, and represented to him that he could not safely trust his 
life with such a traitor, though his own eldest son. Therefore 




ASKING THE WAY TO BECKET'S TOMB. 



52 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



the king sent him a ring from off his finger as a token of for- 
giveness ; and when the prince had kissed it, with much grief 
and many tears, and had confessed to those around him how 
bad, and wicked, and undutiful a son he had been ; he said 
to the attending priests : " O, tie a rope about my body, and 
draw me out of bed, and lay me down upon a bed of ashes, 
that I may die with prayers to God in a repentant manner ! " 
And so he died, at twenty-seven years old. 

Three years afterwards, Prince Geof- 
frey, being unhorsed at a tournament, 
had his brains trampled out by a crowd 
of horses passing over him. So, there 
only remained. Prince Richard, and Prince 
John — who had grown to be a young 
man, now, and had solemnly sworn to 
be faithful to his father. Richard soon 
rebelled again, encouraged by his friend 
the French king, and soon submitted and 
was again forgiven, swearing on the New 
Testament never to rebel again ; and, in 
another year or so, rebelled again ; and, 
in the presence of his father, knelt down 
on his knee before the King of France; 
and did the French king homage ; and 
declared that with his aid he would possess himself, by force, 
of all his father's French dominions. 

Sick at heart, wearied out by the falsehood of his sons, 
and almost ready to lie down and die, the unhappy king who 
had so long stood firm began to fail. But the Pope, to his 
honor, supported him ; and obliged the French king and 
Richard, though successful in fight, to treat for peace. Richard 
wanted to be crowned King of England, and pretended that 




PRINCE RICHARD. 



THE DISOBEDIENT PRINCES 53 

he wanted to be married (which he really did not) to the 
French king's sister, his promised wife, whom King Henry 
detained in England. King Henry wanted, on the other 
hand, that the French king's sister should be married to his 
favorite son John ; the only one of his sons (he said) who 
never rebelled against him. At last King Henry, deserted 
by his nobles one by one, distressed, exhausted, broken- 
hearted, consented to establish peace. 

One final heavy sorrow was reserved for him, even yet. 
When they brought him the proposed treaty of peace, in 
writing, as he lay very ill in bed, they brought him also the 
list of the deserters from their allegiance, whom he was 
required to pardon. The first name upon this list was John, 
his favorite son, in whom he had trusted to the last. 

"O John! child of my heart!" exclaimed the king in a 
great agony of mind. " O John, whom I have loved the best ! 
O John, for whom I have contended through these many 
troubles ! Have you betrayed me too ? " And then he lay 
down with a heavy groan, and said, ." Now let the world go 
as it will. I care for nothing more ! " 

After a time, he told his attendants to take him to the 
French town of Chinon — a town he had been fond of, during 
many years. But he was fond of no place now ; it was too 
true that he could care for nothing more upon this earth. He 
wildly cursed the hour when he was born, and cursed the 
children whom he left behind him ; and expired. 

As, one hundred years before, the servile followers of the 
Court had abandoned the Conqueror in the hour of his death, 
so they now abandoned his descendant. The very body was 
stripped, in the plunder of the royal chamber; and it was not 
easy to find the means of carrying it for burial to the abbey 
church of Fontevraud. 



54 



ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 



Richard was said in after years, by way of flattery, to 
have the heart of a lion. It would have been far better, I 
think, to have had the heart of a man. His heart, whatever it 
was, had cause to beat remorsefully within his breast, when he 
came — as he did — into the solemn abbey, and looked on his 
dead father's uncovered face. His heart, whatever it was, 
had been a black and perjured heart, in all its dealings with 

the deceased king, and more defi- 
cient in a single touch of tender- 
ness than any wild beast's in the 
forest. 

There is a pretty story told of 
this reign, called the Story of Fair 
Rosamond. It relates how the 
king doted on Fair Rosamond, 
who was the loveliest girl in all 
the world ; and how he had a beau- 
tiful bower built for her in a park 
at Woodstock ; and how it was 
erected in a labyrinth, and could 
only be found by a clue of silk. 
How the bad Queen Eleanor, be- 
coming jealous of the Fair Rosa- 
mond, found out the secret of the clue, and appeared before 
her, one day, with a dagger and a cup of poison, and left her 
to the choice between those deaths. How Fair Rosamond, 
after shedding many piteous tears and offering many useless 
prayers to the cruel Queen, took the poison, and fell dead in 
the midst of the beautiful bower, while the unconscious birds 
sang gaily all around her. 

Now, there was a fair Rosamond, and she was (I dare 
say) the loveliest girl in all the world, and the king was 




FAIR ROSAMOND 



THE DISOBEDIENT PRINCES 



55 



certainly very fond of her, and the bad Queen Eleanor was 
certainly made jealous. But I am afraid — I say afraid, because 
I like the story so much — that there was no bower, no laby- 
rinth, no silken clue, no dagger, no poison. I am afraid fair 
Rosamond retired to a nunnery near Oxford, and died there, 
peaceably ; her sister-nuns hanging a silken drapery over her 
tomb, and often dressing it with flowers, in remembrance 
of the youth and beauty that had enchanted the king when 
he too was young, and when his life lay fair before him. 

It was dark and ended now ; faded and gone. Henry 
Plantagenet lay quiet in the abbey church of Fontevraud, in . 
the fifty-seventh year of his age — never to be completed — 
after governing England well, for nearly thirty-five years. 





56 



England Under Richard the First. 



IN the year 1189, one of the disobedient sons of whom we 
have read, Richard of the Lion Heart, succeeded to the 
throne of King Henry the Second, whose paternal heart 

he had done so much to break. He had been, as we 
have seen, a rebel from his boyhood ; but the moment he 
became a king against whom others might rebel, he found out 
that rebellion was a great wickedness. In the heat of this 
pious discovery, he punished all the leading people who had 
befriended him against his father. He could scarcely have 
done anything that would have been a better instance of his 
real nature, or a better warning to fawners and parasites not 
to trust in lion-hearted princes. 

He likewise put his late father's treasurer in chains, and 
locked him up in a dungeon from which he was not set free 
until he had relinquished, not only all the crown treasure, but 
all his own money too. So, Richard certainly got the Lion's 
share of the wealth of this wretched treasurer, whether he had 
a Lion's heart or not. 

He was crowned King of England with great pomp at 
Westminster; walking to the Cathedral under a silken canopy 
stretched on the tops of four lances, each carried by a great 

57 



58 



ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 



lord. On the day of his coronation, a dreadful murdering of 
the Jews took place, which seems to have given great delight 
to numbers of savage persons calling themselves Christians. 
The King had issued a proclamation forbidding the Jews (who 
were generally hated, though they were the most useful mer- 
chants in England) to appear at the ceremony ; but as they had 
assembled in London from all parts, bringing presents to show 
their respect for the new Sovereign, some of them ventured 
down to Westminster Hall with their gifts, which were very 

readily accepted. 
It is supposed, 
now, that some 
noisy fellow in the 
crowd, set up a 
howl at this, and 
struck a Jew who 
was trying to get 
in at the Hall door 
with his present. 
A riot arose. The 
Jews who had got 
into the Hall were 




A KNIGHT OP THE CRUSADES. 



driven forth ; and some of the rabble cried out that the new 
king had commanded the unbelieving race to be put to death. 
Thereupon the crowd rushed through the narrow streets of the 
city, slaughtering all the Jews they met ; and when they could 
find no more out of doors (on account of their having fled to 
their houses, and fastened themselves in), they ran madly about 
breaking open all the houses where the: Jews lived, rushing 
in and stabbing or spearing them, sometimes even flinging 
old people and children out of window into blazing 
fires they had lighted up below. This great cruelty lasted 



HOW A WICKED PRINCE MADE A WICKED KING 59 

four-and-twenty hours, and only three men were punished for 
it. Even they forfeited their lives not for murdering and rob- 
bing the Jews, but for burning the houses of some Christians. 

King Richard, who was a strong restless burly man, with 
one idea always in his head, and that the very troublesome 
idea of breaking the heads of other men, was mightily impa- 
tient to go on a Crusade to the Holy Land, with a great 
army. As great armies could not De raised to go, even to 
the Holy Land, without a great deal of money, he sold the 
crown domains, and even the high offices of State ; recklessly 
appointing noblemen to rule over his English subjects, not 
because they were fit to govern, but because they could pay 
high for the privilege. In this way, and by selling pardons 
at a dear rate, and by varieties of avarice and oppression, he 
scraped together a large treasure. He then appointed two 
bishops to take care of his kingdom in his absence, and gave 
great powers and possessions to his brother John, to secure 
his friendship. John would rather have been made Regent 
of England ; but he was a sly man, and friendly to the expe- 
dition ; saying to himself, no doubt, "The more fighting, the 
more chance of my brother being killed; and when he is 
killed, then I become King John !" 

Richard, having completed his plans, with his troops went 
on, in no very good manner, with the Holy Crusade. It was 
undertaken jointly by the King of England and his old friend 
Philip of France. They commenced the business by review- 
ing their forces, to the number of one hundred thousand men. 
Afterwards, they severally embarked their troops for Messina, 
Sicily, which was appointed as the next place of meeting. 

King Richard's sister had married the king of this place, 
but he was dead ; and his uncle, Tancred, had usurped the 
crown, cast the royal widow into prison, and possessed 



6o 



ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 



himself of her estates. Richard fiercely demanded his sister's 
release, the restoration of her lands, and (according to the 
royal custom of the island) that she should have a golden 
chair, a golden table, four-and-twenty silver cups and four- 
and-twenty silver dishes. As he was too powerful to be suc- 
cessfully resisted, Tancred yielded to his demands ; and then 
the French King grew jealous, and complained that the Eng- 
lish King wanted to be absolute in the Island of Sicily and 
everywhere else. Richard, however, cared, little or nothing 
for this complaint, and in consideration of a present of twenty 

thousand pieces 
of gold, prom- 
ised his pretty 
l\v little nephew, 
Arthur, then a 
child two years 
old, in marriage 
to the daughter 
of Tancred Of 
this little Arthur, 
who was put to death by his uncle John, we shall hear again. 
This Sicilian affair arranged without anybody's brains 
being knocked out (which must have rather disappointed 
him), King Richard took his sister away, and also a fair lady 
named Berengaria,with whom he had fallen in love in France, 
and whom his mother, Queen Eleanor, had brought out 
there to be his wife ; and sailed with them to Cyprus. 

He soon had the pleasure of fighting the king of the 
Island of Cyprus, for allowing his subjects to pillage some of 
the English troops who were shipwrecked on the shore ; and 
easily conquering this poor monarch, he seized his only 
daughter, to be a companion to the lady Berengaria, and put 




SARACEN ARCHER. 



HOW A WICKED PRINCE MADE A WICKED KING 



61 



the king himself into silver fetters. He then sailed away 
again with his mother, sister, wife and the captive princess ; 
and soon arrived before the town of Acre, which the French 
King with his fleet was besieging from the sea. But the French 
King was in no triumphant condition, for his army had been 
thinned by the swords of the Saracens, and wasted by the 
plague ; and Saladin, the brave Sultan of the Turks, at the 
head of a numerous army, was at that time gallantly defend- 
ing the place from the hills that rise above it. 

Wherever the united army of the Crusaders went, they 
agreed in few 
points except in 
gaming, drink- 
ing and quarrel- 
ing, in a most 
unholy manner; 
i n debauching 
the people with 
whom they tar- 
ried whether they 
were friends or 
foes, and in car- 




STOCKS— TWELFTH CENTURY. 



rying disturbance and ruin into quiet places. The French 
King was jealous of the English King, and the English 
King was jealous of the French King, and the disorderly 
and violent soldiers of the two nations were jealous of 
one another; consequently, the two Kings could not at first 
agree, even upon a joint assault on Acre ; but when they did 
make up their quarrel for that purpose, the Saracens promised 
to yield the town, to give up to the Christians the wood of 
the Holy Cross, to set at liberty all their Christian captives, 
and to pay two hundred thousand pieces of gold. All this 



62 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

was to be done within forty days ; but, not being done, King 
Richard ordered some three thousand Saracen prisoners to 
be brought out in the front of his camp, and there, in full 
view of their own countrymen, to be butchered. 

The French King had no part in this crime, for he was 
by this time traveling homeward with the greater part of his 
men. being offended by the overbearing conduct of the Eng- 
lish King:, being- anxious to look after his own dominions, 
and being ill, besides, from the unwholesome air of that hot 
and sandy country. King Richard carried on the war without 
him, and remained in the East, meeting with a variety of 
adventures, nearly a year and a half. Every night when his 
army was on the march, and came to a halt, the heralds cried 
out three times, to remind all the soldiers of the cause in 
which they were engaged, "Save the Holy Sepulchre !" and 
then all the soldiers knelt, and said, "Amen!" Marching or 
encamping, the army had continually to strive with the hot 
air of the glaring desert, or with the Saracen soldiers ani- 
mated and directed by the brave Saladin, or with both to- 
gether. Sickness and death, battle and wounds, were always 
among them, but through every difficulty King Richard fought 
like a giant and worked like a common laborer. Long and 
long after he was quiet in his grave, his terrible battle-axe, 
with twenty English pounds of English steel in its mighty 
head, was a legend among the Saracens ; and when all the 
Saracen and Christian hosts had been dust for many a year, 
if a Saracen horse started at any object by the wayside, his 
rider would exclaim, "What dost thou fear, Fool? Dost 
thou think King Richard is behind it?" 

No one admired this king's renown for bravery more 
than Saladin himself, who was a generous and gallant enemy. 
When Richard lay ill of a fever, Saladin sent him fresh fruits 



HOW A WICKED PRINCE MADE A WICKED KING 63 

from Damascus and snow from the mountain-tops. Courtly 
messages and compliments were frequently exchanged between 
them — and then King Richard would mount his horse and 
kill as many Saracens as he could, and Saladin would mount 
his horse and kill as many Christians as he could. In this 
way King Richard fought to his heart's content at Arsoof 
and at Jaffa ; and finding himself with nothing exciting to do 
at Ascalon, except to rebuild, for his own defence, some 
fortifications there which the Saracens had destroyed, he 
kicked his ally, Duke Leopold of Austria, for being too proud 
to work at the fortifications, 

The army at last came within sight of the Holy City of 
Jerusalem; but, being then a mere nest of jealousy, and quar- 
reling, and fighting, soon retired, and agreed with the Sara- 
cens upon a truce for three years, three months, three days 
and three hours. Then the English Christians, protected by 
the noble Saladin from Saracen revenge, visited our Saviour's 
tomb ; and then King Richard embarked with a small force at 
Acre to return home. 

But he was shipwrecked in the Adriatic Sea, and was 
fain to pass through Germany under an assumed name. Now, 
there were many people in Germany who had served in the 
Holy Land under that proud Duke of Austria who had been 
kicked, and some of them easily recognizing a man so 
remarkable as King Richard, carried their intelligence to the 
kicked Duke, who straightway took him prisoner at a little inn 
near Vienna. 

The Duke's master, the Emperor of Germany, and the 
King of France, were equally delighted to have so trouble- 
some a monarch in safekeeping. Friendships which are 
founded on a partnership in doing wrong are never true, and 
the King of France was now quite as heartily King Richard's 



64 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

foe as he had ever been his friend in his unnatural conduct 
to his father. He monstrously pretended that King Richard 
had designed to poison him in the East ; he charged him 
with having murdered, there, a man whom he had in truth 
befriended ; he bribed the Emperor of Germany to keep him 
close prisoner ; and, finally, through the plotting of these two 
princes, Richard was brought before the German legislature, 
charged with the foregoing crimes, and many others. But 
he defended himself so well, that many of the assembly were 
moved to tears by his eloquence and earnestness. It was 
decided that he should be treated, during the rest of his captivity, 
in a manner more becoming his dignity than he had been, 
and that he should be set free on the payment of a heavy 
ransom. This ransom the English people willingly raised. 
When Queen Eleanor took it over to Germany, it was at first 
evaded and refused. But she appealed to the honor of the 
princes of all the German Empire in behalf of her son, and 
appealed so well that it was accepted, and the king released. 
Thereupon, the King of France wrote to Prince John — 
"Take care of thyself. The devil is unchained !" 

King Richard had no sooner been welcomed home by 
his enthusiastic subjects with great display and splendor, and 
had no sooner been crowned afresh at Winchester, than he 
resolved to show the French King that the devil was un- 
chained indeed, and made war against him with great fury. 

The French war, delayed occasionally by a truce, was 
still in progress, when a certain lord named Vidomar, Viscount 
of Limoges, chanced to find in his ground a treasure of ancient 
coins. As the king's vassal, he sent the king half of it ; but 
the king claimed the whole. The lord refused to yield the 
whole. The king besieged the lord in his castle, swore that 



HOW A WICKED PRINCE MADE A WICKED KING 



65 



he would take the castle by storm, and hang every man of its 
defenders on the battlements. 

Bertrand de Gourdon, a young man who was one of the 
defenders of the castle, saw, from his post upon the ram- 
parts, the king, attended only by his chief officer, riding below 
the walls surveying the place. He drew an arrow to the head, 




DEATH OF KING RICHARD FIRST FROM THE ARROW OF BERTRAND DE GOURDON. 

took steady aim, said between his teeth, " Now I pray God 
speed thee well, arrow!" discharged it, and struck the king 
in the left shoulder. 

Although the wound was not at first considered danger- 
ous, it was severe enough to cause the king to retire to his 
tent, and direct the assault to be made without him. The 
castle was taken ; and every man of its defenders was hanged, 
5 



66 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

as the king had sworn all should be, except Bertrand de 
Gourdon, who was reserved until the royal pleasure respect- 
ing him should be known. 

By that time unskillful treatment had made the wound 
mortal, and the king knew that he was dying. He directed 
Bertrand to be brought into his tent. The young man was 
brought there heavily chained. King Richard looked at him 
steadily. He looked steadily at the king, 

"Knave ! " said King Richard, " what have I done to thee, 
that thou shouldst take my life?" 

" What hast thou done to me ?" replied the young man. 
"With thine own hands thou hast killed my father and my two 
brothers. Myself thou wouldst have hanged. Let me die, 
now, by any torture thou wilt. My comfort is, that no torture 
can save thee. Thou, too, must die ; and through me the 
world is quit of thee." 

Again the king looked at the young man steadily. Again 
the young man looked steadily at him. Perhaps some 
remembrance of his generous enemy Saladin, who was not a 
Christian, came into the mind of the dying king. 

" Youth," he said, " I forgive thee. Go unhurt ! " 

Then turning to the chief officer who had been riding 
in his company when he received the wound, King Richard 
said : 

"Take off his chains, give him a hundred shillings, and 
let him depart." 

He sunk down on his couch, and a dark mist seemed in 
his weakened eyes to fill the tent wherein he had so often 
rested, and he died. His age was forty-two ; he had reigned 
ten years. His last command was not obeyed ; for the chief 
officer flayed Bertrand de Gourdon alive, and hanged him. 




The Story of an Awful Crime. 



THE Danes never succeeded in conquering England and 
in making it their own, though many of them settled 
in England and married English wives. But some 
relations of the Danes, called the Normans, were 
bolder and stronger and more fortunate. And William, who 
was called the Conqueror, became King of England, and left 
his son to rule after him. And when four Norman Kings had 
reigned in England, the Count of Anjou was made the Eng- 
lish King, because his mother was the heiress of the English 
crown. 

His great-grandfather, Ingeger, the first Count of Anjou, 
must have been a very brave man. When he was quite a 
boy he was page to his godmother, who was a great lady. 
It was the custom then for boys of noble family to serve 
noble ladies as pages. 

67 



68 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



One morning this lady's husband was found dead in his 
bed, and the poor lady was accused by a nobleman, named 
Gontran, of murdering him. Gontran said he was quite sure 
of her guilt, and that he was ready to stake his life on it, that 
is to say, he offered to fight anyone who should say that the 
lady was innocent. This seems a curious way of finding out 

a person's innocence or 
1^^5 guilt, but it was the cus- 

irj^K'.'ij Hw|^^ H """'■ (I torn of the times. 
J— ~ U i] ( FiL^^x^Bt *1 The poor lady could 

find no one who believed 
in her enough to risk his 
life, and she began to 
despair, when suddenly 
her boy-page rushed for- 
ward and begged that, 
though he was not yet a 
knight, and so had really 
no right to fight, yet that 
he might be allowed to 
, do combat in her defence. 
!,. | ' , ' -'' fa " The whole Court were 

| yf/. , j|_ZIIl f spectators. The Duke 

Charles was on his throne, 
and the accused widow in 
a litter curtained with black. Prayers were offered that God 
would aid the right. The trumpets sounded, and the champions 
rode in full career against each other. At the first onset Gon- 
tran's lance pierced his adversary's shield so that he could not 
disengage it, and Ingeger was thus enabled to close with him, 
hurl him to the ground, and despatch him with a dagger. Then, 
while the lists rang with applause, the brave boy rushed up to 




WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. 




After the I 
Prince Edv 
said, "Giv 



FLIGHT OF QUEEN MARGARET AND PRINCE EDWARD. 

Battleof Northampton the King was taken prisoner, but Queen Margaret with 

flight they were caught by two robbers, one of who 



: your jewels and i 



■life.' 



little 




THE PRINCES IN THETOWER. 



These were the two little hoys 1 
strangled in the tower, hoping 
told in history. 



PRINCE ARTHUR 69 

his godmother and threw himself into her arms in a transport 

of joy." 

When William conquered England he became King of 
England and still owned his own possessions in Normandy, 
and the Count of Anjou, when he became king, still held 
the lands he had held as count, so that the kings of Eng- 
land held a great part of France as well as England. The 
counts of Anjou used to wear a sprig of broom, or ftlanta 
genista, in their helmets, and from this they were called the 
Plantagenet Kings. 

The first of them was brave and clever, and the second 
was brave, but the third, John, was mean and cruel and cow- 
ardly, and had really no right to the throne at all. His 
nephew, Prince Arthur of Brittany, ought to have been 
King, because he was the son of John's elder brother 

The French King, Philip, refused to acknowledge the 
rignt of John to his new dignity, and declared in favor of 
Arthur. You must not suppose that he had any generosity 
of feeling for the fatherless boy ; it merely suited his ambi- 
tious schemes to oppose the King of England. So John and 
the French King went to war about Arthur. 

He was a handsome boy, at that time only twelve years 
old. He was not born when his father, Geoffrey, had his brains 
trampled out at the tournament ; and, besides the misfortune 
of never having known a father's guidance and protection, 
he had the additional misfortune to have a foolish mother 
(Constance by name), lately married to her third husband. 
She took Arthur, upon John's accession, to the French King, 
who pretended to be very much his friend, and who made 
him a knight, and promised him his daughter in marriage ; 
but, who cared so little about him in reality, that finding it 
his interest to make peace with King John for a time, he did 



7o 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

little Prince, 



so without the least consideration for the poor 
and heartlessly sacrificed all his interests. 

Young Arthur, for two years afterwards, lived quietly ; 
and in the course of that time his mother died. But the 
French King then finding it his interest to quarrel with King 



THE BOY PAGE WHO BECAME A KNIGHT. 



John again, again made Arthur his pretence, 

and invited the orphan boy to court. "You 

know your rights, Prince," said the French 

King, "and you would like to be a king. 

Is itnotso?" "Truly," said Prince Arthur, 

" I should greatly like to be a king." 

"Then," said Philip, "you shall have two 

hundred gentlemen who are knights of 

mine, and with them you shall go to win back the provinces 

belonging to you, of which your uncle, the usurping King of 

England, has taken possession. I myself, meanwhile, will head 

a force against him in Normandy." Poor Arthur was so 

flattered and so grateful that he signed a treaty with the crafty 

French King, agreeing to consider him his superior lord, and 



M 



PRINCE ARTHUR 71 

that the French King should keep for himself whatever he 
could take from King John. 

Now, King John was so bad in all ways, and King Philip 
was so perfidious, that Arthur, between the two, might as well 
have been a lamb between a fox and a wolf. But, being so 
young, he was ardent and flushed with hope ; and, when the 
people of Brittany (which was his inheritance) sent him five 
hundred more knights and five thousand foot soldiers, he 
believed his fortune was made. The people of Brittany had 
been fond of him from his birth, and had requested that he 
might be called Arthur, in remembrance of that dimly-famous. 
English Arthur, the hero of so many wonderful deeds, whom 
they believed to have been the brave friend and companion of 
an old king of their own. They had tales among them about 
a prophet called Merlin (of the same old time), who had fore- 
told that their own king should be restored to them after 
hundreds of years ; and they believed that the prophecy would 
be fulfilled in Arthur; that the time would come when he 
would rule them with a crown of Brittany upon his head ; and 
when neither King of France nor King of England would 
have any power over them. When Arthur found himself 
riding in a glittering suit of armor, on a richly caparisoned 
horse, at the head of his train of knights and soldiers, he be- 
lieved this too, and considered old Merlin a superior prophet. 

He did not know — how could he, being so innocent and 
inexperienced ? — that his little army was a mere nothing against 
the power of the King of England. The French king knew 
it ; but the poor boy's fate was little to him, so that the King 
of England was worried and distressed. Therefore, King 
Philip went his way into Normandy ; and Prince Arthur went 
his way towards Mirebeau, a French town near Poictiers, both 
very well pleased. 



72 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

Prince Arthur went to attack the town of Mirebeau, 
because his grandmother Eleanor, who has so often made her 
appearance in this history (and who had always been his 
mother's enemy), was living there, and because his knights 
said, "Prince, if you can take her prisoner, you will be able 
to bring the king, your uncle, to terms ! " But she was not 
to be easily taken. She was old enough by this time — eighty; 
but she was as full of stratagem as she was full of years and 
wickedness. Receiving intelligence of young Arthur's approach, 
she shut herself up in a high tower, and encouraged her 
soldiers to defend it like men. Prince Arthur with his little 
army besieged the high tower. King John, hearing how mat- 
ters stood, came up to the rescue with his army. So here 
was a strange family party ; the boy-prince besieging his grand- 
mother, and his uncle besieging him. 

This position of affairs did not last long. One summer 
night King John, by treachery, got his men into the town, 
surprised Prince Arthur's force, took two hundred of his 
knights, and seized the prince himself in his bed. The knights 
were put in heavy irons, and driven away in open carts drawn 
by bullocks, to various dungeons, where they were most 
inhumanly treated, and where some of them were starved to 
death. Prince Arthur was sent to the Castle of Falaise. 

One day while he was in prison at that castle, mourn- 
fully thinking it strange that one so young should be in so 
much trouble, and looking out of the small window in the 
deep dark wall, at the summer sky and the birds, the door 
was softly opened, and he saw his uncle, the king, standing 
in the shadow of the archway, looking very grim. 

"Arthur," said the king, with his wicked eyes more on 
the stone floor than on his nephew, "will you not trust to the 



PRINCE ARTHUR 



73 



gentleness, the friendship, and the truthfulnesss of your loving 
uncle?" 

" I will tell my loving uncle that," replied the boy," when 
he does me right. Let him restore to me my kingdom of 
England, and then come to me and ask the question." 

The king looked at him and went out. " Keep that boy 
close prisoner," said he to the warden of the castle. 

One dark night, as Prince Arthur lay sleeping, dreaming 
perhaps of rescue by those unfortunate gentlemen who were 
obscurely suffering and dying in his cause, he was roused, 
and bidden by his jailer to come down the staircase to the 
foot of the tower. 
He hurriedly 
dressed himself 
and obeyed. 
When they came 
to the bottom of 
the winding 
stairs, and the 
night air from 
the river blew upon their faces, the jailer trod upon his 
torch and put it out. Then, Arthur, in the darkness was 
hurriedly drawn into a solitary boat. In that boat, he found 
his uncle and one other man, and in the dark night, as 
they passed along by the river, the wicked king stabbed the 
young prince with his own hand, and pushed him into the 
swift-flowing water. "There," he cried, "that is the king- 
dom I promised you." 

And the poor young Prince sank into the dark flood, 
never to rise again. 

i Shakespeare tells another story of Prince Arthur's death, 
which you will read for yourselves cne day ; this is the story : 




74 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



After King John had taken the young Prince prisoner, 
he shut him up in the Castle of Northampton, and ordered 
Hubert de Burgh, the Governor of the Castle, to put poor 
Arthur's eyes out, because he thought that no one would 
want a blind boy to be King of England. So Hubert went 
into the room where the little Prince was shut up. 




"Good morning," 
Hubert." 

" Indeed, I have been merrier," said Hubert, who, though 
he did not like to disobey the king, was yet miserable at the 
wicked deed he had been asked to do. 

"Nobody," said Arthur, "should be sad but I. If I were 
out of prison and kept sheep I should be as merry as the day 



PRINCE ARTHUR 



75 



is long. And so I would be here but for my uncle. He is 
afraid of me, and I of him. Is it my fault that I was Geoffrey's 
son ? Indeed it is not, and I would to heaven I were your 
son, so you would love me, Hubert." 

" If I talk to him," said Hubert to himself, " I shall never 
have the courage to do this wicked deed." 

"Are you ill, Hubert?" Arthur went on. "You look 
pale to-day. If you were ill I would sit all night and watch 
you, for I believe I love you more than you do me." 

Hubert dared not listen. 



He felt he must do the king's 
wicked will, so he pulled out 
the paper on which the king 
had written his cruel order, 
and showed it to the young 
prince. Arthur read it calmly 
and then turned to Hubert. 
"So you are to put out my 
eyes with hot irons. " 

"Young boy, I must," 
said Hubert. 

"And you will?" asked Arthur. MAGNA CHAETA SEAL - 

And Hubert answered, "And I will." 

" Have you the heart ? " cried Arthur. " Do you remem- 
ber when your head ached how I tied it up with my own 
handkerchief, and sat up with you the whole night holding 
your hand and doing everything I could for you ! Many a 
poor man's son would have lain still and never have spoke a 
loving word to you ; but you, at your sick service, had a 
prince. Will you put out my eyes — those eyes that never 
did, nor never shall, so much as frown on you ?" 

"I have sworn to do it," said Hubert. He called two 




7 6 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



men, who brought in the fire and the hot irons, and the cord 

to bind the little Prince. 

" Give me the irons," said Hubert, "and bind him here." 
"For heaven's sake, Hubert, let me not be bound," 

cried Arthur. " I will not struggle — I will stand stone still. 

Nay, hear me, Hubert, drive these men away and I will sit 

as quiet as a lamb, and I will forgive you whatever torment 

you may put me to." 




KING JOHN'S MISERABLE 
CONDITION IN HIS LAST 



And Hubert was moved by his pleading, and told the 
men to go ; and as they went they said — "We are glad to 
have no part in such a wicked deed as this." 

Then Arthur flung his arms round Hubert and implored 
him to spare his eyes, and at last Hubert consented, for all the 
time his heart had been sick at the cruel deed he had prom- 
ised to do. Then he took Prince Arthur away and hid him, 
and told the king: he was dead. 



PRINCE ARTHUR 77 

But King John's lords were so angry when they heard 
that Arthur was dead, and John seemed so sorry for having 
given the order to Hubert, that Hubert thought it best to tell 
him that Arthur had not been killed at all, but was still alive 
and safe. John was now so terrified at the anger of his lords 
on Arthur's account that Arthur might from that time have 
been safe from him. But the poor boy was so frightened 
by what he had gone through that he made up his mind 
to risk his life in trying to escape. So he decided to leap 
down from the top of the tower as his only means of escape. 
Then he thought he could get away in disguise without, 
being recognized. 

"The wall is high, and yet will I leap down," he said. 
" Good ground, be pitiful and hurt me not." 

So he leaped, but the tower was high, and the fall killed 
him. And before he died, he murmured — " Heaven take my 
soul and England keep my bones." 

That is the story as Shakespeare gives it. 

Almost every one in England hated King John, even 
before this dreadful affair of Prince Arthur's death. The 
King of France took Normandy away from him, and his own 
people would not help him to fight for it. 

He was very cruel and revengeful, and often put people 
in prison or killed them without giving any reason for it, or 
having them properly tried. So the great nobles of England 
joined together and said that they would not let John be 
king any longer in England unless he would give them a 
written promise to behave better in future. At first he laughed 
at the idea, and said he should do as he chose, and that he 
would fight the lords and keep them in their proper place. 
But he had to give in when he found that only seven of the 
lords of England were on his side and all the rest against 



78 



ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 



him. So then he asked the barons and the bishops to meet 
him at Runnymede, and there he put his big seal to a writing, 
promising what they wished. He did not sign his name to it, 
but you can see that very parchment, called Magna Charta, 

sealed in the British Museum 



with the King's big seal to it. 

But though he fixed his 

seal to the paper he did not 

keep the promises that were 

in it, and the barons grew so 

angry that they asked the King of • 

France to help them to fight John, 

and to turn him out. 

John ran away when he heard 
that the French were coming. He 
is friends to fight his battles, 
went off, wrecking the castles 
of the barons who had asked the 
French Prince to come over, and 
who were now with him. Then 
some one told the barons that the 
French Prince was determined to 
cut off all their heads as soon as 
he had got England for his own. 
So they saw how foolish they had 
been to ask him to come and help them. John was in Lin- 
colnshire, and was coming across the sands at the Wash, but 
the tide suddenly came in and swept away his crown, his 
treasure, his food, and everything was lost in the sea. King- 
John was very miserable at losing all his treasures, and he tried 
to drown his sorrows by drinking a lot of beer and eating 




PRINCE ARTHUR 79 

much more than was good for him. This brought on a fever, 
and he died miserably, with no one at all to be sorry for him. 
He was and is the best-hated of all our English kings. 

There was much danger in traveling in those days, 
for robbers used to hide in the woods and lonely places, and 
so attack and rob travelers. Many of the nobles themselves 
who were in attendance on the king, being often unable to 
get their proper pay, either belonged to these robber bands or 
secretly helped them, and shared with them the plunder they 
took from those they robbed. The best known of these 
robbers was the famous Robin Hood, who lived in the time 
of King Richard and King John. He is supposed to have 
been a nobleman, and to have had his hiding place in Sher- 
wood Forest, and he is said to have been kind and merciful 
to the poor, and to have helped them out of the money and 
good things he stole from the rich. Many songs about him 
have come down to us. The poor suffered in those old days 
many and great hardships at the hands of the nobles of Eng- 
land, who indeed robbed and oppressed them very cruelly. 
So they were ready enough to sing the praises of one who 
stole only from the rich and who gave to the poor. 




So 




England in the Year, a. d., 1216. 



HENRY THE THIRD was crowned at Gloucester 
when he was only nine years old. You remember 
that King John's crown had been lost in the Wash 
with his other treasures, so they crowned Henry with 
a gold bracelet of his mother's. The lords who attended the 
coronation banquet wore white ribbons round their heads as 
a sign of their homage to the innocent, helpless child. They 
made him swear to do as his father had promised in the great 
charter sealed in Runnymede; and the Earl of Pembroke was 
appointed to govern the kingdom till Henry grew up. 

Henry grew up unlike his cruel father. He was gentle, 
tenderhearted, fond of romance, music and poetry, sculpture, 
painting and architecture. Some of the most beautiful 
churches we have were built in his reign. But, though he 
had so many good qualities, he had no bravery, no energy 
and perservance. He was fond of pleasure and of the beauti- 
ful things of this world, and cared too little for the beautiful 
things of the soul. He was fond of gaiety, and his young 

6 Si 



82 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

queen was of the same disposition. She was one of four 
sisters. Two of them married kings, and two married counts, 
and the kings' wives were so proud of being queens that they 
used to make their sisters, the countesses, sit on little low 
stools while they themselves sat on handsome high chairs. 

Henry's time passed in feasts and songs and dancing. 
Romances and curious old Breton ballads were translated 
into English, and recited at the Court with all sorts of tales 
of love and battle and chivalry. 

The object of chivalry was to encourage men in noble 
and manly exercises, and to teach them to succor the op- 
pressed, to uphold the dignity of women, and to help the 
Christian faith. And chivalry was made attractive by all sorts 
of gay and pretty devices. Knights used to wear in their 
helmets a ribbon or a glove that some lady had given them, 
and it was supposed that, while they had the precious gift of 
a good lady in their possession, they would do nothing base 
or disloyal that should dishonor the gift they carried. 

Each young noble at twelve years old was placed as page 
in some other noble household. There, for two years, he 
learned riding and fencing, and the use of arms. When the 
lord killed a deer the pages skinned it and carried it home. 
At a feast the pages carried in the chief dishes and poured 
the wine for their lords to drink. They helped the ladies of 
the house in many ways, and carried their trains on state 
occasions. 

At fourteen a page became a squire. He helped his lord 
to put on his armor, carried his shield to battle, cleaned and 
polished his lord's armor and sharpened his sword, and he 
was allowed to wear silver spurs instead of iron ones, such 
as the common people wore. 

When he was considered worthy to become a knight he 



HENRY THE THIRD 



83 



went through a ceremony which dedicated him to the service 
of God. We will tell you what it was. 

The day before he was to become a knight the young man 
stripped and bathed. Then he put on a white tunic — the 
white as a promise of purity ; a red robe — the red meant the 
blood he was to shed 
in fighting for the right ; 
and he put on a black 
doublet (which is a sort 
of jacket), and this was 
black in token of death, 
of which a knight was 
never to be afraid. Then 
he went into the church, 
and there he spent the 
night in prayer. He 
heard the priests sing- 
ing their chant in the 
darkness of the big 
church, and he thought 
of his sins, and stead- 
fastly purposed to lead 
a new life. In the 



morning he confessed 

his sins, walked up to 

the altar, laid down his 

belt and sword, and 

then knelt at the foot of the altar steps. He received the Holy 

Communion, and then the lord who was to make him a knight 

gave him the accolade — three strokes on the back of the bare 

neck with the flat side of the sword — and said : 

"In the name of Saint George I make thee a knight," — and 




AT FOURTEEN HE BECAME A SQUIRE. 



84 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

bade him take back his sword — "in the name of God and 
Saint George, and use it like a true knight as a terror and 
a punishment for evil-doers, and a defence for widows and 
orphans, and the poor, and the oppressed, and the priests — 
the servants of God." 

The priests and the ladies came round him and put on 
his gilt spurs, and his coat of mail, and his breastplate, and 
armpieces, and gauntlets, and took the sword and girded it 
on him. Then the young man swore to be faithful to God, 
the king, and woman ; his squire brought him his helmet, 
and his horse's shoes rang on the church pavement and under 
the tall arches as his squire led the charger up the aisle. In 
the presence of priests, and knights, and ladies assembled, 
the young knight sprang upon his horse and caracoled before 
the altar, brandishing his lance and his sword. And then 
away to do the good work he was sworn to. 

Many, of course, forgot their promises and broke their 
vows, but in those wild times many a rough man was made 
gentle, many a cruel man less cruel, and many a faint-hearted 
one made bold by the noble thoughts from which the idea of 
chivalry sprang. 

Now, you know, England is governed by the king and 
Parliament. But in those old days England was ruled by 
kings and by such nobles as had money and strength enough 
to be able to rule by force. These nobles were indeed a ter- 
ror to the people. They lived in strong, stoutly-built castles, 
with a great moat or ditch round them, and having always 
many retainers and armed servants, they were often able to 
resist the king himself. It was the growing power and 
riches of the king which they most dreaded, for he only 
could do them harm. It was then for their own sakes — to 
guard their own persons, to protect their own property against 



HENEY THE THIRD 



35 



the king- 



rather than from any desire to help the people, 
that the barons resisted first John and then Henry. 

But among them was a noble, unselfish man, who loved 

r 




his fellow countrymen, and 
who saw, that to make 
people rich, and happy, 
and prosperous, they must 
be allowed to share in the 
government of the country 
in which they live. This 
noble Englishman, Simon 
de Montfort, was called the 
great Earl, and it was he who headed the resistance to Henry 
the Third, when that king tried to escape from keeping the 
promises contained in the Great Charter which he had bound 
himself to obey. 



86 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

It would require a great deal of writing on my part, and 
a great deal of reading on yours, to follow the king through 
his disputes with the barons, and to follow the barons through 
their disputes with one another — so I will make short work 
of it for both of us, and only relate the chief events that arose 
out of these quarrels. The good King of France was asked 
to decide between them. He gave it as his opinion that the 
king must maintain the Great Charter, and that the barons 
must give up the Committee of Government, and all the rest 
that had been done by the Parliament at Oxford ; which the . 
Royalists, or king's party, scornfully called the Mad Parliament. 
The barons declared that these were not fair terms, and they 
would not accept them. Then they caused the great bell of 
St. Paul's to be tolled, for the purpose of rousing up the Lon- 
don people, who armed themselves at the dismal sound and 
formed quite an army in the streets. I am sorry to say, how- 
ever, that instead of falling upon the king's party with whom 
their quarrel was, they fell upon the miserable Jews, and killed 
at least five hundred of them. They pretended that some of 
these Jews were on the king's side, and that they kept hidden 
in their houses, for the destruction of the people, a certain 
terrible composition called Greek Fire, which could not be 
put out with water, but only burned the fiercer for it. What 
they really did keep in their houses was money ; and this their 
cruel enemies wanted, and this their cruel enemies took, like 
robbers and murderers. 

The Earl of Leicester put himself at the head of these 
Londoners and other forces, and followed the king to Lewes 
in Sussex, where he lay encamped with his army. Before 
giving the king's forces battle here, the Earl addressed his 
soldiers, and said that King Henry the Third had broken so 
many oaths, that he had become the enemy of God, and 



HENRY THE THIRD 87 

therefore they would wear white crosses upon their breasts, as if 
they were arrayed, not against a fellow-Christian, but against 
a Turk. White-crossed accordingly, they rushed into the 
fight. They would have lost the day — the king having on 
his side all the foreigners in England ; and from Scotland, 
John Comyn, John Baliol, and Robert Bruce, with all their 
men — but. for the impatience of Prince Edward, who in his 
hot desire to have vengeance on the people of London, threw 
the whole of his father's army into confusion. He was taken 
prisoner ; so was the king ; so was the king's brother the 
king of the Romans ; and five thousand Englishmen were 
left dead upon the bloody grass. 

For this success, the Pope excommunicated the Earl of 
Leicester; which neither the Earl nor the people cared at all 
about. The people loved him and supported him, and he 
became the real king ; having all the power of the govern- 
ment in his own hands, though he was outwardly respectful 
to King Henry the Third, whom he took with him wherever 
he went, like a poor old limp coat-card. He summoned a 
Parliament (in the year one thousand two hundred and sixty- 
five) which was the first Parliament in England that the peo- 
ple had any real share in electing ; and he grew more and 
more in favor with the people every day, and they stood by 
him in whatever he did. 

Many of the other barons, and particularly the Earl of 
Gloucester, who had become by this time as proud as his 
father, grew jealous of this powerful and popular Earl, who 
was proud too, and began to conspire against him. Since the 
battle of Lewes, Prince Edward had been kept as a hostage, 
and, though he was otherwise treated like a prince, had never 
been allowed to go out without attendants appointed by the 
Earl of Leicester, who watched him. The conspiring lords 



88 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

found means to propose to him, in secret, that they should 
assist him to escape, and should make him their leader ; to 
which he very heartily consented. 

So, on a day that was agreed upon, he said to his atten- 
dants after dinner (being then at Hereford), " I should like 
to ride on horseback, this fine afternoon, a little way into the 
country." As they, too, thought it would be very pleasant to 
have a canter in the sunshine, they all rode out of the town 
together in a gay little troop. When they came to a fine level 
piece of turf, the prince fell to comparing their horses one 
with another, and offering bets that one was faster than 
another ; and the attendants, suspecting no harm, rode gal- 
loping matches until their horses were quite tired. The prince 
rode no matches himself, but looked on from his saddle, and 
staked his money. Thus they passed the whole merry after- 
noon. Now, the sun was setting, and they were all going 
slowly up a hill, the prince's horse very fresh, and all the 
other horses very weary, when a strange rider mounted on a 
gray steed appeared at the top of the hill, and waved his hat. 
"What does the fellow mean?" said the attendants one to 
another. The prince answered on the instant, by setting spurs 
to his horse, dashing away at his utmost speed, joining the 
man, riding into the midst of a little crowd of horsemen who 
were then seen waiting under some trees, and who closed 
around him ; and so he departed in a cloud of dust, leaving 
the road empty of all but the baffled attendants, who sat look- 
ing at one another, while their horses drooped their ears and 
panted. 

The prince joined the Earl of Gloucester at Ludlow. The 
Earl of Leicester, with a part of the army and the stupid old 
kine was at Hereford. One of the Earl of Leicester's sons, 
Simon de Montfort, with another part of the army was in 



HENRY THE THIRD 



89 



Sussex. To prevent these two parts from uniting was the 
prince's first object. He attacked Simon de Montfort by 
night, defeated him, seized his banners and treasure, and 
forced him into Kenilworth Castle, in Warwickshire, which 
belonged to his family. 

His father, the Earl of Leicester, in the meanwhile, not 
knowing what had happened, marched out of Hereford with 
his part of the army and the king, to meet him. He came, 




THE PRIESTS ATTENDED THE SICK. 



on a bright morning in August, to Evesham, which is watered 
by the pleasant river Avon. Looking rather anxiously across 
the prospect towards Kenilworth, he saw his own banners 
advancing ; and his face brightened with joy. But it clouded 
darkly when he presently perceived that the banners were cap- 
tured, and in the enemy's hands ; and he said, " It is over. 
The Lord have mercy on our souls, for our bodies are Prince 
Edward's ! " 



S o ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

He fought like a true knight, nevertheless. When his 
horse was killed under him he fought on foot. It was a fierce 
battle, and the dead lay in heaps everywhere. The old king, 
stuck up in a suit of armor on a big war-horse, which didn't 
mind him at all, and which carried him into all sorts of places 
where he didn't want to go, got into everybody's way, and very 
nearly got knocked on the head by one of his own son's men. 
But he managed to pipe out, " I am Harry of Winchester ! " 
and the prince, who heard him, seized his bridle, and took 
him out of peril. The Earl of Leicester still fought bravely, 
until his best son Henry was killed, and the bodies of his best 
friends choked his path ; and then he fell, still fighting, sword 
in hand. They mangled his body, and sent it. as a present to 
a noble lady — but a very unpleasant lady, I should think — 
who was the wife of his worst enemy. They could not man- 
gle his memory in the minds of his faithful people, though. 
Many years afterwards, they loved him more than ever, and 
regarded him as a saint, and always spoke of him as " Sir 
Simon the Righteous." 

And even though he was dead, the cause for which he 
had fought still lived, and was strong, and forced itself upon 
the king in the very hour of victory. Henry found himself 
obliged to respect the Great Charter, however much he hated 
it, and to make laws similar to the laws of the Great Earl of 
Leicester, and to be moderate and forgiving towards the peo- 
ple at last — even toward the people of London, who had so 
long opposed him. There were more risings before all this 
was done, but they were set at rest by these means, and 
Prince Edward did his best in all things to restore peace. 
One Sir Adam de Gourdon was the last dissatisfied knight 
in arms ; but the prince vanquished him in single com- 
bat in a wood, and nobly gave him his life, and became his 



HENRY THE THIRD 



91 



friend, instead of slaying him. Sir Adam was not ungrate- 
ful. He ever afterwards remained devoted to his generous 
conquerer. 

Some of the priests in England had grown very wicked 
and greedy. They neglected their duties and thought only, 
of feasting and making themselves comfortable. But some 
good monks came over from Rome, and determined to try to 
show the English priests what a Christian's duty was. They 
made a vow to be poor, and to deny themselves everything, 
except just enough food to keep body and soul together. 
They would not even have books at first, but spent all the 
money they could collect on the poor. They nursed the sick 
and helped the unfortunate. They would not wear pretty 
clothes or beautiful vestments, but were dressed in plain grey 
or black serge, with a rope round the waist, and bare feet. 
Although they were foreigners and could speak but little Eng- 
lish, they encouraged people to write in the English language 
instead of in Latin or French. 

It was a favorite dream of the early English and French 
kings to take Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the hands 
of the Saracens, and to let Christians be the guardians of the 
place where Christ lived and died. To do this they were 
constantly making war on the Saracens, and these wars were 
called Crusades, and the knights who went to them Crusaders. 
Crusaders carried a red cross on their banners and on their 
shields. The Saracens' banners and shields had a crescent 
like a new moon. For two hundred years this fighting went 
on, and the last of our English princes to take part in it was 
Prince Edward. He had only three hundred knights with 
him, and was not able to attack Jerusalem, because he could 
not get together more than seven thousand men. His knights 
went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but he stayed in his camp 



92 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

at Acre. One day a messenger came into his tent with letters, 
and while he was reading them, the wicked messenger stabbed 
him. He had been sent to do so by the Saracens, because 
they were afraid of this brave prince. The prince caught the 
blow on his arm, and kicked the messenger to the ground, 
but the man rose and rushed at him again with the knife. 
The dagger just grazed the prince's forehead, and seizing a 
wooden footstool Prince Edward dashed out the messenger's 
brains. His wife, the Princess Eleanor, was afraid the dagger 
was poisoned. So she sucked the blood from the wound with 
her own lips, and so most likely saved his life. But he was 
very ill in spite of this, and England nearly lost one of her 
best and bravest princes. 

As the king, his father, had sent entreaties to him to 
return home, he now began the journey. He had- got as far 
as Italy, when he met messengers who brought him intelli- 
gence of the king's death. Hearing that all was quiet at 
home, he made no haste to return to his own dominions, but 
paid a visit to the Pope, and went in state through various 
Italian towns, where he was welcomed with acclamations as 
a mighty champion of the Cross from the Holy Land, and 
where he received presents of purple mantles and prancing 
horses, and went along in pomp and triumph. The shouting 
people little knew that he was the last English monarch who 
would ever embark in a crusade, or that within twenty years 
every conquest which the Christians had made in the Holy 
Land, at the cost of so much blood, would be won back by 
the Turks. But all this came to pass. 

There was, and there is, an old town standing in a plain 
in France, called Chalons. When the king was coming 
toward this place on his way to England, a wily French 
lord, called the Count of Chalons, sent him a polite challenge 



HENRY THE THIRD 



93 



to come with his knights and hold a fair tournament with the 
Count and his knights, and make a day of it with sword and 
lance. It was represented to the king that the Count of 
Chalons was not to be trusted, and that, instead of a holiday 
fight for mere show and in good humor, he secretly meant a 
real battle, in which the English should be defeated by supe- 
rior force. 

The king, however, nothing afraid, went to the appointed 
place on the appointed day with a thousand followers. When 
the count came with two 



thousand and attacked the 

English in earnest, the 

English rushed at them 

with such valor that the 

count's men and the count's 

horses soon began to be 

tumbled down all over the 

field. The count himself 

seized the king round the 

neck, but the king tumbled 

him out of his saddle in 

return for the compliment, 

and, jumping from his own horse, and standing over him, 

beat away at his iron armor like a blacksmith hammering on 

his anvil. Even when the count owned himself defeated and 

offered his sword, the king would not do him the honor to 

take it, but made him yield it up to a common soldier. 

There had been such fury shown in this fight, that it was 

afterwards called the battle of Chalons. 

The English were very well disposed to be proud of 
their king after these adventures ; so, when he landed at 
Dover in the year one thousand two hundred and seventy-fcur 




94 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

(being then thirty-six years old), and went on to West- 
minster where he and his good queen were crowned with 
great magnificence, splendid rejoicings took place. For the 
coronation-feast there were provided, among other eatables, 
four hundred oxen, four hundred sheep, four hundred and 
fifty pigs, eighteen wild boars, three hundred flitches of bacon 
and twenty thousand fowls. The fountains and conduits in 
the streets flowed with red and white wine instead of water; 
the rich citizens hung silks and cloths of the brightest colors 
out of their windows to increase the beauty of the show, and 
threw out gold and silver by whole handfuls to make scram- 
bles for the crowd. In short, there was such eating and 
drinking, such music and capering, such a ringing of bells and 
tossing up of caps, such a shouting, and singing, and revel- 
ing, as the narrow overhanging streets of old London City 
had not witnessed for many a long day. All the people 
were merry — except the poor Jews, who, trembling within 
their houses, and scarcely daring to peep out, began to fore- 
see that they would have to find the money for this joviality 
sooner or later. 

To dismiss this sad subject of the Jews for the present, 
I am sorry to add that in this reign they were most unmer- 
cifully pillaged. They were hanged in great numbers, on 
accusations of having clipped the King's coin — which all 
kinds of people had done. They were heavily taxed ; they 
were disgracefully badged ; they were, on one day, thirteen 
years after the coronation, taken up with their wives and 
children and thrown into beastly prisons, until they purchased 
their release by paying to the king twelve thousand pounds. 
Finally, every kind of property belonging to them was seized 
by the king, except so little as would defray the charge of their 
taking themselves away into foreign countries. Many years 



HENRY THE THIRD 95 

elapsed before the hope of gain induced any of their race to 
return to England, where they had been treated so heartlessly 
and had suffered so much. 

If King Edward the First had been as bad a king to 
Christians as he was to Jews, he would have been bad indeed. 
But he was, in general, a wise and great monarch, under 
whom the country much improved. He had no love for the 
Great Charter — few kings had, through many, many years — 
but he had high qualities. The first bold object that he con- 
ceived when he came home, was to unite under one sover- 
eign England, Scotland and Wales ; the two last of which 
countries had each a little king of its own, about whom the 
people were always quarreling and fighting and making a 
prodigious disturbance — a great deal more than he was worth. 
In the course of King Edward's reign he was engaged, besides, 
in a war with France. Let us tell about his troubles with the 
Welsh. 

Llewellyn was the Prince of Wales. He had been on 
the side of the barons in the reign of the stupid old king, 
but had afterwards sworn allegiance to him. When King 
Edward came to the throne, Llewellyn was required to swear 
allegiance to him also, which he refused to do. The king, 
being crowned and in his own dominions, three times more 
required Llewellyn to come and do homage, and three times 
more Llewellyn said he would rather not. He was going to 
be married to Eleanor de Montfort, and it chanced that this 
young lady, coming from France with her youngest brother, 
Emeric, was taken by an English ship, and was ordered by 
the English king to be detained. Upon this, the quarrel 
came to a head. The king went, with his fleet, to the coast 
of Wales, where, so encompassing Llewellyn, that he could 
only take refuge in the bleak mountain region of Snowdon, 



96 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

in which no provisions could reach him, he was soon starved 
into an apology, and into a treaty of peace, and into paying 
the expenses of the war. The king, however, forgave him 
some of the hardest conditions of the treaty and consented 
to his marriage. And he now thought he had reduced Wales 
to obedience. But the Welsh, although they were naturally 
a gentle, quiet, pleasant and hospitable people, were of great 
spirit when their blood was up. So they went to war and 
for reasons we shall speak of in the next chapter. 

King Edward had bought over Prince David, Llewellyn's 
brother, by heaping favors upon him ; but he was the first to 
revolt, being perhaps troubled in his conscience. One stormy 
night he surprised the Castle of Hawarden, killed the whole 
garrison and carried off the nobleman a prisoner to Snowdon. 
Upon this, the Welsh people rose like one man. King 
Edward with his army, marching from Worcester to the Menai 
Strait, crossed it — near to where the wonderful tubular iron 
bridge now, in days so different, makes a passage for railway 
trains — by a bridge of boats that enabled forty men to march 
abreast. He subdued the Island of Anglesea, and sent his 
men forward to observe the enemy. The sudden appearance 
of the Welsh created a panic among them, and they fell back 
to the bridge. The tide had in the meantime risen and sepa- 
rated the boats ; the Welsh pursuing them, they were driven 
into the sea, and there they sunk, in their heavy iron armour, 
by thousands. After this victory Llewellyn, helped by the 
severe winter weather of Wales, gained another battle ; but 
the King ordering a portion of his English army to advance 
through South Wales, and catch him between two foes, and 
Llewellyn bravely turning to meet this new enemy, he was 
surprised and killed — very meanly, for he was unarmed and 
defenceless. But of this we shall hear more in a few moments. 




England in the Year, a.d., 1300. 



THERE were Welsh princes long before there were 
English kings, and the Welsh princes could not bear 
to be subject to the kings of England. So they were 
always fighting to get back their independence. But the 
English kings could not let them be free as they wished, 
because England could never have been safe with an inde- 
pendent kingdom so close to her. So there were constant 
wars between the two countries, and sometimes the fortune 
of battle went one way and sometimes the other. 

But at last the Welsh Prince Llewellyn was killed. He 
had gone to the south of Wales to cheer up his subjects there, 
and he had crossed the river Wye into England, when a 
small band of English knights came up. A young knight 
named Adam Frankton met with a Welsh chief as he came 
out of a barn to join the Welsh army. Frankton at once 
attacked him, and after a struggle, wounded the Welsh chief 
to death. Then he rode on to battle, and when he came 
back he tried to find out what had become of the Welshman. 
He heard that he was already dead, and then they found that 
the dead man was the great Welsh Prince Llewellyn. His 
7 97 



93 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

head was taken off and sent to London, where it was placed 
on the battlements of the Tower and crowned, in scorn, with 
ivy. This was because an old Welsh magician, years before, 
had said that when English money became round, the Welsh 
princes should be crowned in London. And money had 
become round in this way : — 

Before this there were silver pennies, and when anyone 
wanted a half-penny, he chopped the silver penny in two, and 
if he wanted a farthing he chopped the silver penny in four, 
so that money was all sorts of queer shapes. But Edward 
the First had caused round copper half-pennies and farthings 
to be made, and when the Welsh prince had heard of this he 
had believed that the old magician's words were coming true, 
and that he should defeat Edward and become king of Eng- 
land himself. Instead of this, the poor man's head was cut 
off, and, in mockery of his hopes and dreams, they crowned 
the poor dead head with a wreath of ivy. 

Now the Welsh wanted another prince, and King Edward 
said : "If you will submit to me and not fight any more, you 
shall have a prince who was born in Wales, can speak never 
a word of English, and never did wrong; to man, woman, or 
child." The Welsh people agreed that if they could have such 
a prince as that, they would be contented and quiet, and give 
up fighting. And so one day the leaders of the Welsh met 
King Edward at his castle in Caernarvon, and asked for the 
Prince he had promised them, and he came out of his castle 
with his little son, who had only been born a week before, in 
his arms. 

" Here is your Prince," he said, holding up the little 
baby. " He was born in Wales, he cannot speak a word 
of English, and he has never done harm to man, woman or 
child." 



THE FIRST PRINCE OP WALES 



99 



Instead of being angry at the trick the king had played 
them, the Welsh people were very pleased. Welsh nurses 
took care of the baby, so that he really did learn to speak in 
Welsh before he could speak in English. . And the Welsh 
were so pleased with their baby king that from that time 
Edward the First had no more trouble with them. 

There are many stories told of this prince's boldness as 
a child. He promised them to grow up as brave as his 




"HERE IS YOUR PRINCE. HE WAS 
BORN IN WALES, HE CANNOT SPEAK 
A WORD OF ENGLISH, AND HE HAS 
NEVER DONE HARM TO MAN, 
WOMAN OR CHILD." 



father, and it would have been better for him if he had done 
so. He was always very fond of hunting, and once when he 
was quite young, he and his servants were hunting the deer. 
His servants lost the trace of the deer, and presently, when 
they reined up their horses, they found that the young prince 
was no longer with them. They looked everywhere for him, 
very frightened lest he should have fallen into the hands of 
robbers ; and at last they heard a horn blown in the forest. 



L.ofC. 



ioo ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

They followed the sound of it and presently found that the 
young prince had seen which way the deer went, and had 
followed it and killed it all by himself. 

Now King Edward the First had great trouble with his 
Scotch nobles, and many were the battles he fought with 
them, until at last he forced the Scottish king Balliol to 
declare himself his vassal, and he became the over-lord of 
Scotland. But there arose a brave Scot named William 
Wallace, who longed to see his country free from England, 
and he drove the English back, and again and again he beat 
them. 

But in a few years Edward got together another army, 
and leading them into Scotland he beat the Scots and took 
Wallace prisoner. Wallace was tried and found guilty of 
treason, and when he had been beheaded, they crowned his 
head with laurel and placed it on London Bridge, for all the 
passers-by, by road or river, to see. 

Then two men claimed the Scottish crown, Robert Bruce 
and John, who was called the Red Comyn. They were 
jealous of each other, and Bruce thought that Comyn had 
betrayed him. They met in a church to have an explana- 
tion. 

"You are a traitor," said Bruce. 

"You lie," said Comyn. 

And Bruce in a fury struck at him with his dagger, and 
then, filled with horror, rushed from the church. "To horse, 
to horse," he cried. One of his attendants, named Kirk- 
patrick, asked him what was the matter. 

"I doubt," said Bruce, "that I have slain the Red 

Comyn," 

"You doubt!" said Kirkpatrick. " I will make sure." 



THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES 



So saying, Kirkpatrick ran hurriedly back into the 
church, and ruthlessly dealt the wounded man his deathblow. 

And now the task of defending Scotland against Edward 
was left to Rob- 
ert Bruce. Kingf 



Edward was 
angry when 




so 

he 
heard of this 
murder, that at 
the feast, when 
his son was made 
a knight, he 
swore over the 
swan, which was 
the chief dish 
and which was 
the emblem of 
truth and con- 
stancy, that he 
would never rest 
two nights in the 
same place till 
he had chastised 
the Scots. And 
for some time 
the Scots and 
English were at 
bitter war, and 
when King Edward died 
would go on fighting. 

But Edward the Second was not a man like his father. 
He was more like his grandfather Henry the Third, caring 



COMYN STABBED BY BRUCE. 



he made his son promise he 



ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 



for pretty colors and pretty things, rich clothes, rich feasts, 
rich jewels, and surrounding himself with worthless favorites. 
Bobert Bruce said he was more afraid of the dead bones of 
Edward the First than of the living body of Edward of Caer- 
narvon, and that it was easier to win a kingdom from his son 
than a foot of land from the father. Gradually the castles the 
English had taken in Scotland were won back from them. 
For twenty years the English had held the castle of Edin- 
burgh, and at the end of that time, Randolph, a Scottish 
noble, and a cousin of Robert Bruce, came to besiege it. 

The siege was long, 
and the brave English 
showed no signs of 
giving in. Randolph 
was told that it was 
possible to climb up 
the south face of the 
rock on which the cas- 
tle stood, and steep as 
the rock was, Randolph 
and some others began 
to climb it one dark 
night. When they were part of the way up, and close to 
the wall of the castle, they heard a soldier above them 
cry out: "Away, I see you," and down came stone after 
stone. Had many more been thrown Randolph and his 
companions must have been dashed to the ground and 
killed, for it was only on a very narrow ledge that they had 
found a footing. But the soldier was only in joke, trying to 
frighten his fellows. He had not really seen them at all, and 
he passed on. When all was quiet again, the daring Scots 
climbed up till they reached the top of the wall, and when 




THE FIRST PRINCE OP WALES 103 

they had fixed a rope ladder the rest of their men came up. 
Then they fell upon the men of the garrison and killed them, 
and the castle was taken by the Scots. 

Intelligence was brought that Bruce was then besieging 
Stirling Castle, and that the governor had been obliged to 
pledge himself to surrender it, unless he should be relieved 
before a certain day. Hereupon, the king ordered the nobles 
and their fighting men to meet him at Berwick ; but, the 
nobles cared so little for the king, and so neglected the sum- 
mons, and lost time, that only on the day before that appointed 
for the surrender, did the king find himself at Stirling, and 
even then with a smaller force than he had expected. How- 
ever, he had, altogether, a hundred thousand men, and Bruce 
had not more than forty thousand ; but, Bruce's army was 
strongly posted in three square columns, on the ground lying 
between the Burn or Brook of Bannock and the walls of 
Stirling Castle. 

On the very evening, when the king came up, Bruce did 
a brave act that encouraged his men. He was seen by a 
certain Henry de Bohun, an English knight, riding about 
before his army on a little horse, with a light battle-axe in 
his hand and a crown of gold on his head. This English 
knight, who was mounted on a strong war-horse, cased in 
steel, strongly armed, and able (as he thought) to overthrow 
Bruce by crushing him with his mere weight, set spurs to his 
great charger, rode on him, and made a thrust at him with 
his heavy spear. Bruce parried the thrust, and with one 
blow of his battle-axe split his skull. 

The Scottish men did not forget this, next day when the 
battle raged. Randolph, Bruce's valiant nephew, rode, with 
the small body of men he commanded, into such a host of 
the English, all shining in polished armor in the sunlight, 



io 4 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

that they seemed to be swallowed up and lost, as if they had 
plunged into the sea. But they fought so well, and did such 
dreadful execution, that the English staggered. Then came 
Bruce himself upon them, with all the rest of his army. While 
they were thus hard pressed and amazed, there appeared 
upon the hills what they supposed to be a new Scottish army, 
but what were really only the camp followers, in number 
fifteen thousand, whom Bruce had taught to show themselves 
at that place and time. The Earl of Gloucester, commanding 
the English horse, made a last rush to change the fortune of 
the day ; but Bruce (like Jack the Giant-killer in the story) 
had had pits dug in the ground, and covered over with turfs 
and stakes. Into these, as they gave way beneath the weight 
of the horses, riders and horses rolled by hundreds. The 
English were completely routed ; all their treasure, stores 
and engines, were taken by the Scottish men; so many wagons 
and other wheeled vehicles were seized, that it is related that 
they would have reached, if they had been drawn out in a 
line, one hundred and eighty miles. The fortunes of Scotland 
were, for the time, completely changed ; and never was a 
battle won, more famous upon Scottish ground, than this 
great battle of Bannockburn. 

Edward with difficulty saved his life, and throughout 
England there were bitter lamentings at the loss and shame 
the country had suffered. Scotland was free from the English 
yoke, and of all the great conquests the first Edward had 
won, only Berwick-on-Tweed remained to the English. 

Edward II was never loved by his subjects. He made 
favorites of silly and wicked persons, and so gave much 
offence to good folk. 

There was a certain favorite of his, a young man from 
Gascony, named Piers Gaveston, of whom his father had so 



THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES 



105 



much disapproved that he had ordered him out of England, 
and had made his son swear by the side of his sick bed, 
never to bring him back. But, the prince no sooner found 
himself king, than he broke his oath, as so many other princes 
and kings did (they were far too ready to take oaths), and 
sent for his dear friend immediately. 

Now, this same Gaveston was handsome enough, but 
was a reckless, insolent, audacious fellow. He was detested 
by the proud English lords, not 
only because he had such power 
over the king, and made the court 
such a dissipated place, but, also, 
because he could ride better than 
they at tournaments, and was used, 
in his impudence, to cut very bad 
jokes on them ; calling one, the 
old hog ; another, the stage-player; 
another, the Jew ; another, the black 
dog of Ardenne. This was as 
poor wit as need be, but it made 
those lords very wroth ; and the 
surly Earl of Warwick, who was 
the black dog, swore that the time 
should come when Piers Gaveston, this proud, insolent and 
detested favorite of the king, should feel the black dog's teeth. 

It was not come yet, however, nor did it seem to be 
coming. The king made him Earl of Cornwall, and gave him 
vast riches; and, when the king went over to France to marry 
the French Princess Isabella, daughter of Philip le Bel, who 
was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world, he 
made Gaveston regent of the kingdom. His splendid mar- 
riage ceremony in the church of Our Lady at Boulogne, where 




Tir 



THE LOVELY FRENCH PRINCESS. 



ic6 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



there were four kings and three queens present (quite a pack 
of coat cards, for I dare say the knaves were not wanting), 
being over, he seemed to care little or nothing for his beau- 
tiful wife ; but was wild with impatience to meet Gaveston again. 

When he landed at home, he paid no attention to any- 
body else, but ran into the favorite's arms before a great con- 
course of people, and hugged him, and kissed him, and called 
him his brother. At the coronation, which soon followed, 
Gaveston was the richest and brightest of all the glittering 
company there, and had the honor of carrying the crown. 
This made the proud lords fiercer than ever ; the people, 
too, despised the favorite, and would never call him Earl of 
Cornwall, however much he complained to- the king and 
asked him to punish them for not doing so, but persisted in 
stvling him plain Piers Gaveston. 

The barons were so unceremonious with the king, in 
giving him to understand that they would not bear this 
favorite, that the king was obliged to send him out of the 
country. The favorite himself was made to take an oath 
(more oaths !) that he would never come back, and the barons 
supposed him to be banished in disgrace, until they heard 
that he was appointed governor of Ireland. Even this was 
not enough for the besotted king, who brought him home 
again in a year's time, and not only disgusted the court and 
the people by his doting folly, but offended his beautiful 
wife, too, who never liked him afterwards. 

He had now the old royal want — of money — and the 
barons had the new power of positively refusing to let him 
raise any. He summoned a Parliament at York; the barons 
refused to make one, while the favorite was near him. He 
summoned another Parliament at Westminster, and sent 
Gaveston away. Then, the barons came, completely armed, 



THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES 



107 



and appointed a committee of themselves to correct abuses in 
the state and in the king's household. He got some money 
on these conditions, and directly set off with Gaveston for the 
border country, where they spent it in idling away the time, 
and feasting, while Bruce made ready to drive the English out 
of Scotland. For, though the old king had even made this 
poor weak son of his swear (as some say) that he would not 
bury his bones, but 



would have them 
boiled clean in a 
caldron, and car- 
ried in front of the 
English army until 
Scotland was en- 
tirely subjugated, 
the second Edward 
was so unlike the 
first Edward that 
Bruce gained in- 
creasing strength 
and power daily. 
The commit- 
tee of nobles, after 
some months of 
deliberation, ordained that the king should henceforth call a 
Paraliment together, once every year, and even twice if neces- 
sary, instead of summoning it only when he chose. Further, 
that Gaveston should once more be banished, and, this time, 
on pain of death if he ever came back. The king's tears were 
of no avail ; he was obliged to send his favorite to Flanders. 
As soon as he had done so, however, he dissolved the Parlia- 
ment, with the low cunning of a mere fool, and set off to the 




108 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

north of England, thinking to get an army about him to 
oppose the nobles. And once again he brought Gaveston 
home, and heaped upon him all the riches and titles of which 
the barons had deprived him. 

The lords saw, now, that there was nothing for it but to 
put the favorite to death. They could have done so, legally, 
according to the terms of his banishment ; but they did so, I 
am sorry to say, in a shabby manner. Led by the Earl of 
Lancaster, the king's cousin, they first of all attacked the king 
and Gaveston at Newcastle. They had time to escape by 
sea, and the mean king, having his precious Gaveston with 
him, was quite content to leave his lovely wife behind. 
When they were comparatively safe, they separated ; the king 
went to York to collect a force of soldiers ; and the favorite 
shut himself up, in the meantime, in Scarborough Castle over- 
looking the sea. This was what the barons wanted. They 
knew that the castle could not hold out ; they attacked it, 
and made Gaveston surrender. He delivered himself up to 
the Earl of Pembroke — that lord whom he had called the 
Jew — on the earl's pledging his faith and knightly word, that 
no harm should happen to him and no violence be done him. 

Now, it was agreed with Gaveston, that he should be 
taken to the Castle of Wallingford, and there kept in honor- 
able custody. They traveled as far as Dedington, near 
Banbury, where, in the castle of that place, they stopped for 
a night to rest. Whether the Earl of Pembroke left his 
prisoner there, knowing what would happen, or really left 
him thinking no harm, and only going (as he pretended) to 
visit his wife, the countess, who was in the neighborhood, is 
no great matter now ; in any case, he was bound as an hon- 
orable gentleman to protect his prisoner, and he did not do 
it. In the morning, while the favorite was yet in bed, he was 



THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES 



109 



required to dress himself and come down into the court- 
yard. He did so without any mistrust, butstarted and turned 
pale when he found it full of strange armed men. "I think 
you know me?" said their leader, also armed from head to 
foot. ' ' I am the 
black dog of 
Ardenne!" 

The time had 
come when Piers 
Gaveston was to 
feel the black 
dog's teeth, in- 
deed. They set 
him on a mule, 
and carried him, 
in mock state and 
with military mu- 
sic, to the black 
dog's kennel — 
Warwick Castle 
— where a hasty 
council, com- 
posed of some 
great noblemen, 
considered what 
should be done 
with him. Some v 
were for sparing 
him, but one loud voice — it was the black dog's bark, I 
dare say — sounded through the castle hall, uttering these 
words : " You have the fox in your power. Let him go. now, 
and you must hunt him again." 




RANDOLPH WAS DASHED TO THE GROUND AND KILLED. 



no ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

They sentenced him to death. He threw himself at the 
feet of the Earl of Lancaster — the old hog — but the old hog 
was as savage as the dog. He was taken out upon the pleasant 
road, leading from Warwick to Coventry, where the beautiful 
river Avon, by which, long afterwards, William Shakespeare 
was born and now lies buried, sparkled in the bright land- 
scape of the beautiful May day ; and there they struck off his 
head, and stained the dust with his blood. 

When the king heard of this black deed, in his grief and 
rao;e he denounced relentless war against the barons, and 
both sides were in arms for half a year. But, it then became 
necessary for them to join their forces against Bruce, who had 
used the time well while they were divided, and had now a 
great power in Scotland. 

Edward II was wasteful and extravagant, and did not 
even try to govern the country wisely and well, while his 
favorites made themselves hated more and more by their dis- 
honesty and wickedness. The last of his favorites was named 
Despenser, and he was as much hated by the Queen Isabella 
as by the lords and people of England. Despenser not only 
made himself hated by the queen, but he managed also to 
make her dislike her husband, the king, with whom she had 
long been on unfriendly terms. At last Isabella, disgusted 
with her husband and his favorite, ran away to France, and 
there, with the help of the Count of Hainaultand other friends 
in England, she raised an army and attacked and defeated 
her husband and his favorite. The young Despenser was 
hanged on a gibbet fifty feet high, and a Parliament was called 
to deci-de what should be done with the king. 

The Parliament declared its right to make or unmake 
kings, and ordered that Edward should not be king any more. 
Some members went to Edward at Kenilworth to tell him 



THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES 



what they had decided, and Ed- 
ward, clad in a plain black gown, 
received them and quietly prom- 
ised to be king no more. Then 
he was taken to Berkeley Castle, 
and a few months after the peo- 
ple learned that he was dead. 

There has always been much 
doubt whether he died a natural 
death or was murdered. The 
queen was certainly not a good 
woman, and she hated her hus- 
band bitterly, and, perhaps for 
these reasons, people were ready 
to believe that she had helped to 
kill the wretched king. At any 
rate there was some ground for 
suspecting that some of her great- 
est friends in England caused 
Edward to be murdered. 

The Bishop of ■ Hereford, 
who had always been on the 
queen's side, is said to have sent 
to two wicked men the follow- 
ing message written in Latin: 
" Edward him occidcre uolitetimerc 
bonum est." Now this message 
had two meanings according to 
the way the stops were put in. 
The first was: "Be unwilling to 
fear to kill Edward — it is good." 




n2 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

The other was: "Be unwilling to kill Edward — it is good to 
fear." So you see that, if this message fell into any one's 
hands for whom it was not intended, the bishop would have 
been able to say he meant to warn people not to kill the 
king, while Gurney and Maltravers, who received the message, 
could say that the paper was an order to kill him. 

The story goes, as told by Marlowe, a great English 
poet, that they came to the castle and there found the poor 
king in a dungeon. He was standing in mire and puddle, 
and, although he was a king, they gave him only bread and 
water, and when he tried to sleep they beat loudly upon a 
drum so that he could get no rest. Then the poor king 
thought of his former greatness and how brave and galant a 
show he had made as a knight in many a tournament, and 
he cried out: 

" Tell Isabel, the queen, I looked not thus 
When for her sake I ran at tilt in France, 
And there unhorsed the Duke of Cleremont." 

He was too weak to resist these wicked men, and they 
had no mercy in their hearts, but murdered him. 




$ Edward, tdc 





England in the Year, A.D., 1340. 



THE name of Edward the Black Prince will always be 
remembered with love and admiration by all brave 
boys and girls, because he was by all accounts a very 
brave, gallant, and courteous prince, feared by his 
foes and by his friends beloved. His father, Edward the 
Third, had not given up his hopes of regaining his lost pos- 
sessions in France, so he spent two long years in getting 
together money and ships and an army. He fought the 
French fleet near Sluys. Both sides fought fiercely, and at 
last the English won. The French had thought that they 
were quite sure to get the best of it, and they were afraid to 
tell the King of France how the English had beaten them, for 
hundreds of the French had been either killed or been forced 
to jump into the sea to escape the swords of the English. 

Now, at this time every king kept a jester to make 

8 113 



H4 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



jokes and amuse him and his friends at their feasts, and the 
jester was a privileged person, who could say anything he 
liked. So now they told the jester of the King of France that 
he must tell the king the bad news, because he could say 
what he liked and no one would punish him for it. So the 
jester said — 

"Oh ! what dastardly cowards the English are ! " 
"How so?" said the king, who expected to hear that 
the cowardly English had been driven away by his men. 

"Because," an- 
swered the jester, "they 

'•ffi/jNCL* h ave n °t jumped into 
the sea as our brave 
men had to do." 

So then the king 

asked him what he 

meant, and then the 

courtiers came forward 

and told the sad story 

of the English victory. 

Then Edward besieged a town called Tournay, but he 

had not enough money to get provisions for his men, so he 

had to make friends with the king of France for a little while 

and go back to England. 

Six years later he pawned his crown and his queen's 
jewels, and at last got together enough money to go and 
fight with the French again. He landed at La Hogue, and as 
he landed he fell so violently that his nose began to bleed. 

" Oh, this is a bad sign," said his courtiers, " that your 
first step on French soil should be a fall." 

"Not so," said the king. " It is a good sign. It shows 
that the land desires me ; so she takes me close to her." 




EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE 



115 



He had thirty-two thousand men with him, and his son, 
the Black Prince. Some say he was called the Black Prince 
because he wore black armor, but others say it was because 
he made himself as great a terror to the French as a black 
night is to foolish children who are by themselves in a room. 

Then Ed- 
ward inarched 
towards the 
French, and the 
French inarched 
to meet him, and 
as they marched 
they broke down 
all the bridges, 
so that the Eng- 
lish could not 
advance by them. 
But Edward had 
made up his 
mind to get 
across the river 
Seine and fight 
with his enemies ; 
and he was no 
more to be 
stopped by the 
water than a dog 
would have been who wanted to get over to the other side to 
fight another dog. He got a poor man to show him a place 
where the river was shallow at low tide, and there he plunged 
into the river, crying, "Let him who loves me follow me," and 
the whole army followed and got safely to the other side. 




THE BRAVE ENGLISH KNIGHT. 



n6 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

Edward arranged his soldiers well, and went himself to 
the top of a little hill where there was a windmill. From this 
he could see everything that went on. The French had a far 
larger army than the English, and when they came in sight 
of Edward's army and saw how well placed it was, the wiser 
Frenchmen said, "Do not let us fight them to-day, for our 
men and horses are tired. Let us wait for to-morrow and 
then we can drive them back," So the foremost of the French 
army turned back, but those behind were discontented and 
thought the fighting had begun and that they had not had a 
chance. So they pushed forward till the whole French army 
was close to the English. 

King Edward had made all his soldiers sit on the grass 
and eat and drink. Mounted on his horse he rode among 
them telling them to be brave, for that they were now going 
to win a glorious victory and cover themselves with eternal 
glory. At three in the afternoon the first French soldiers 
came face to face with the Englishmen, and the battle began. 
Some soldiers from Genoa who had been paid to fight for the 
French King, said they did not want to fight ; they Avere too 
tired and could not fight as good soldiers should, but the 
men behind pressed them on, and they were beaten. A heavy 
rain fell, with thunder, and a great flight of crows hovered in 
the air over all the battalions, making a loud noise. Shortly 
afterwards it cleared up and the sun shone very bright. But 
the French had it in their faces and the English at their 
backs. This was about the year 1346. 

When the Genoese drew near, they approached the Eng- 
lish with a loud noise to frighten them ; but the English 
remained entirely quiet, arid did not seem to mind it. They 
then set up a second shout and advanced a little forward. 
The English never moved. Still they hooted a third time, 




EDWARD VI KEEPING HIS DIARY. 

This young Prince was the son of Henry VIII. His education began i 
age he had two tutors, and when only eight years old he was able 




PRINCESS ELIZABETH-AFTERWArtDS THE GREAT QUEEN. 

i treated very rudely by Queen Mary 
; was sent to the country to be out 
;n, William Shakespeare lived and wrc 



In her girlhood days Princess Elizal 
her. This made her very unhappy 
Queen. While Princess Elizabeth \ 



EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE 



117 



and advanced with their crossbows presented and began to 
shoot. The English archers then moved a step forward and 
shot their arrows with such force and quickness that it seemed 
as if it snowed. The fight raged furiously, and presently a 
knight came galloping up to the windmill and begged the 
king to send help to his son, as he was sore pressed. 

" Is my son in danger of his life ? " said the king. 

"No, thank God," returned the 
knight, "but in great need of your help." 

Then the king answered " Return to 
them that sent you and say that I com- 
mand them to let the boy win his spurs, 
for I am determined that, if it please God, 
all the glory of this day shall be given to 
him and to those to whose care I have 
entrusted him." This message cheered 
the prince mightily, and he and the Eng- 
lish won the battle of Crecy, where the 
French lost over 4,000 men, together 
with the flower of the French noblesse. 

And the battle of Crecy, one of the 
most glorious in English history, was 
won by the common people of England, 
yeomen and archers, foot soldiers against 
the knights and squires of France with 
their swords and horses, who were the most celebrated 
soldiers of Europe. In this battle the blind king of Bohemia 
took part with the French. 

"I pray you," he said to his friends, "lead me into the 
battle that I may strike one more stroke with this good sword 
of mine," So they led him in and he was killed. 

The battle of Poictiers was fought entirely under the 




GENOESE CROSS.BOWMAN. 



Ii8 



ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 



direction of the Black Prince, and this was another splendid 
victory to England ; and in this battle the French king was 
taken. It happened in this way : 

After eight years of differing and quarreling, the Prince 
of Wales again invaded France with an army of sixty thou- 
sand men. He went through the south of the country, burn- 
ing and plundering wheresoever 
he went ; while his father, who had 
still the Scottish war upon his 




THE KING AND HIS COURT JESTER. 

hands, did the like in Scotland, but was harassed and worried 
in his retreat from that country by the Scottish men, who 
repaid his cruelties with interest. 

The French king, Philip, was now dead, and was suc- 
ceeded by his son John. The Black Prince, called by that 
name from the color of the armor he wore to set off his fair 
complexion, continuing to burn and destroy in France, roused 
John into determined opposition ; and so cruel had the Black 
Prince been in his campaign, and so severely had the French 



EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE 



ng 



peasants suffered, that he could not. find one who for love, or 
money, or the fear of death, would tell him what the French 
king was doing, or where he was. Thus it happened that he 
came upon the French king's forces, all of a sudden, near the 
town of Poictiers, and found that the whole neighboring coun- 




&?.<~ -?&£¥»' 



c 



THE BLACK PRINCE AND HIS KNIGHT. 



try was occupied by a vast French army. "God help us!" 
said the Black Prince; "we must make the best of it." 

So on a Sunday morning, the 18th of September, the 
prince, whose army was now reduced to ten thousand men in 
all, prepared to give battle to the French king, who had sixty 
thousand horse alone. While he was so engaged, there came 



i2o ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

riding from the French camp a cardinal, who had persuaded 
John to let him offer terms, and try to save the shedding of 
Christian blood. " Save my honor," said the prince to this 
good priest, "and save the honor of my army, and I will 
make any reasonable terms." He offered to give up all the 
towns, castles and prisoners he had taken, and to swear to 
make no war in France for seven years ; but, as John would 
hear of nothing but to surrender, with a hundred of his chief 
knights, the treaty was broken off, and the prince said quietly, 
"God defend the right ; we shall fight to-morrow! " 

Therefore, on the Monday morning, at the break of day, 
the two armies prepared for battle. The English were posted 
in a strong place, which could only be approached by one 
narrow lane, skirted by hedges on both sides. The French 
attacked them by this lane, but were so galled and slain by 
English arrows from behind the hedges, that they were forced 
to retreat. Then went six hundred English bowmen round 
about, and, coming upon the rear of the French army, rained 
arrows on them thick and fast. The French knights, thrown 
into confusion, quitted their banners, and dispersed in all 
directions. Said Sir John Chandos to the prince, "Ride 
forward, noble prince, and the day is yours. The king of 
France is so valiant a gentleman, that I know he will never 
fly, and may be taken prisoner." Said the prince to this, 
" Advance English banners, in the name of God and St. 
George !" and on they pressed until they came up with the 
French king, fighting fiercely with his battle-axe, and when 
all his nobles had forsaken him, attended faithfully to the last 
by his youngest son Philip, only sixteen years of age. Father 
and son fought well ; and the king had already two wounds in 
his face, and had been beaten down, when he at last delivered 



EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE 121 

himself to a banished French knight, and gave him his 
right-hand glove in token that he had done so. 

The king was brought to the Black Prince as he was rest- 
ing in his tent, and he behaved like the true gentleman he 
was. He showed the deepest respect and sympathy for his 
vanquished foe. He ordered the best of suppers to be served 
to the king, and would not sit with him to eat, but stood 
behind his chair and waited on him like a servant, saying — 
" I am only a prince. It is not fitting that I should sit in the 
presence of the king of France." And King John said : 

" Since it has pleased Heaven that I am a captive, I thank 
my God that I have fallen into the hands of the most generous 
and valiant prince alive." 

King John was taken a prisoner to London. They rode 
into the city, King John mounted on a beautiful white horse 
that belonged to the Black Prince, while Prince Edward him- 
self, riding on a black pony, was ready to wait on him, and 
to do his bidding. 

It was this generous temper which made the Black Prince 
beloved by all who knew him ; it was only during his last 
illness that his character seemed to be changed by the great 
sufferings that he underwent, and it was only during the last 
year of his life that he did anything of which a king and an 
Englishman need be ashamed. 

He seems to -have inherited his skill in war from his 
father, and from his mother, Queen Philippa, he inherited 
gentleness, goodness, and true courtesy. There are many 
stories told of the goodness and courage of this lady. Among 
others, this : 

When Edward the Third had besieged Calais for a year, 
the good town which had held out so long was obliged to 
surrender, for there was no longer anything to eat in the city, 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



and the folks said : " It is as good to die by the hands of the 
English as to die here by famine like rats in a hole." So 
they sent to tell the king they would give up the town to him. 
But Edward the Third was so angry with them for having 
resisted him so long, that he said that they should all be 
hanged. Then Edward the Black Prince begged his father 
not to be so hard on brave men who had only done what they 
believed to be their duty, and entreated him to spare them. 
Then said the king — "I will spare them on condition 

that six of the 
citizens, bare- 
headed, bare- 
footed, clad 
only in their 
shirts, and with 
ropes around 
their necks, 
shall come to 
me here, and 
bring the keys 
of the city with 
them." 

And when the men of Calais heard this, they said, "No; 
better to die than live a dishonored life by giving up even one 
of these our brothers who have fought and suffered with us." 
But one of the chief gentlemen of Calais — Eustace de S. 
Pierre — said : 

"It is good that six of us should win eternal glory in this 

world and the sunshine of God's countenance in the next, by 

dying for our town and our brethren. I, for one, am willing 

to go to the English king on such terms as he commands." 

Then up rose his son and said likewise, and four other 




THE SIX BURGESSES OF CALAIS. 



EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE 123 

gentlemen, inspired by their courage, followed their example. 
So the six in their shirts, with ropes round their necks and the 
keys of the town in their hands, went out through the gates, 
and all the folk of Calais stood weeping and blessing them, 
as they went. When they came to the king, he called for the 
hangman, saying — " Hang me these men at once." 

But Queen Philippa was there, and though she was ill, 
she left her tent weeping so tenderly that she could not stand 
upright. Therefore she cast herself upon her knees before 
the king, and spoke thus : 

"Ah, gentle sire, from the day I passed over sea I have 
asked for nothing ; now I pray you, for the love of Our 
Lady's son, Christ, to have mercy on these." 

King Edward waited for a while before speaking, and 
looked at the queen as she knelt, and he said : " Lady, I had 
rather you had been elsewhere. You pray so tenderly that I 
dare not refuse you ; and, though I do it against my will, 
nevertheless take them. I give them to you." 

Then took he the six citizens by the halters and delivered 
them to the queen, and released from death all those of Calais 
for the love of her. She had them led away, and gave each 
a good dinner and a fresh suit of clothes. The king, how- 
ever, turned all the French people out of Calais, and filled it 
with English, and it remained quite an English town for more 
than 200 years. 




124- 







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QUEEN VICTORIA AND THE PRINCE CONSORT. 

This picture shows a trip they made to one of the beautiful parks of London, where the scho 
children received them by singing national anthems. 




EDWARD VII, PRINCE OF WALES, RECEIVING DIGNITARIES. 




England Under Richard Second 



Richard, son of the Black Prince, a boy eleven years 
of age, succeeded his grandfather, Edward Third, to the 
crown, under the title of King Richard Second. The whole 
English nation was ready to admire him for the sake of his 
brave father. As the lords and ladies about the court, they 
declared him to be the most beautiful, the wisest, and the 
best, even of princes, whom the lords and ladies about the 
court generally declare to be the most beautiful, the wisest, 
and best of mankind. To flatter a poor boy in this base 
manner was not a very likely way to develop whatever good 
was in him, and it brought him to anything but a good or 
happy end. Had the Black Prince lived a little longer, he 
would have become king to succeed his father, Edward Third. 
This boy king was fond of beautiful robes and rich clothing — 
but, as we shall see, royal robes do not make a king. 

The Duke of Lancaster, the young king's uncle, 
commonly called John of Gaunt, from having been born at 
the Flemish city of Ghent, a name which the common people 
called Gaunt, was supposed to have some thoughts of the 

125 



i26 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

throne himself; but as he was not popular, and as the memory 
of the Black Prince was, he submitted to his nephew. 

The war with France being still unsettled, the govern- 
ment of England wanted money to provide for the expenses 
that might arise out of it ; accordingly a certain tax, called 
the poll-tax, was ordered to be levied on the people. This 
was a tax on every person in the kingdom, male and female, 
above the age of fourteen, of three groats (or three fourpenny 
pieces) a year; clergymen were charged more, and only 
beggars were exempt. 

I have no need to repeat that the common people of 
England had long been suffering under great oppression. 
They were still the mere slaves of the lords of the land on 
which they lived, and were on most occasions harshly and 
unjustly treated. But they had begun by this time to think 
very seriously of not bearing quite so much, and probably 
were emboldened by that French insurrection I mentioned in 
the last chapter. 

The people of Essex rose against the poll-tax, and, being 
severely handled by the government officers, killed some of 
them. At this very time some one of the tax-collectors 
going his rounds from house to house at Dartford, in Kent, 
came to the cottage of one Wat, a tiler by trade, and claimed 
the tax upon his daughter. Her mother, who was at home, 
declared that she was under the age of fourteen ; upon that, 
the collector (as other collectors had already done in different 
parts of England) behaved in a savage way, and brutally in- 
sulted Wat Tyler's daughter. The daughter screamed, the 
mother screamed. Wat, the Tiler, who was at work not far 
off, ran to the spot, and did what any honest father under 
such provocation might have done — struck the collector dead 
at a blow. 



ROYAL ROBES DO NOT MAKE A KING 



Instantly the people of that town uprose as one man. 
They made Wat Tyler their leader; they joined with the 
people of Essex, who were in arms under a priest called Jack 
Straw ; they took out of prison another priest named John 
Ball ; and, gathering in numbers as they went along, advanced 
in a great confused army of poor men, to Blackheath. It is 
said that they wanted to abolish all property, and to declare 
all men equal. I do not think this very likely, because they 
stopped the travellers on the road and made them swear to 
be true to King Richard and the people. Nor were they at 
all disposed to injure those who had done them no harm, 
merely because they 
were of high station ; 
for the king's moth- 
er, who had to pass 
through their camp 
of Blackheath, on her 
way to her young son, 
lying for safety in the 
Tower of London, 
had merely to kiss 
a few dirty-faced 
rough-bearded men who were noisily fond of royalty, and so 
got away in perfect safety. Next day the whole mass 
marched on to London Bridge. 

There was a drawbridge in the middle, which William 
Walworth, the mayor, caused to be raised to prevent their 
coming into the city ; but they soon terrified the citizens into 
lowering it again, and spread themselves, with great uproar, 
over the streets. They broke open the prisons ; they burned 
the papers in Lambeth Palace ; they destroyed the Duke of 
Lancaster's palace, the Savoy, in the Strand, said to be the 




WAT TYLER AND THE TAX COLLECTOR 



i23 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

most beautiful and splendid in England ; they set fire to the 
books and documents in the Temple, and made a great riot. 
Many of these outrages were committed in drunkenness, since 
those citizens who had well-filled cellars were only too glad 
to throw them open to save the rest of their property ; but 
even the drunken rioters were very careful to steal nothing. 
They were so angry with one man, who was seen to take a 
silver cup at the Savoy palace and put it in his breast, that 
they drowned him in the river, cup and all. 

The young king had been taken out to treat with them 
before they committed these excesses, but he and the people 
about him were so frightened by the riotous shouts that they 
got back to the Tower in the best way they could. This 
made the insurgents bolder ; so they went on rioting away, 
striking off the heads of those who did not at a moment's 
notice declare for King Richard and the people, and killing 
as many of the unpopular persons whom they supposed to be 
their enemies as they could by any means lay hold of. In 
this manner they passed one very violent day, and then proc- 
lamation was made that the king would meet them at Mile- 
End and grant their request. 

The rioters went to Mile-End, to the number of sixty 
thousand, and the king met them there, and to the king the 
rioters peaceably proposed four conditions. First, that neither 
they nor their children, nor any coming after them, should 
be made slaves any more. Secondly, that the rent of land 
should be fixed at a certain price in money, instead of being 
paid in service. Thirdly, that they should have liberty to buy 
and sell in all markets and public places, like other free men. 
Fourthly, that they should be pardoned for past offences. 
Heaven knows there was nothing very unreasonable in these 
proposals ! The young king deceitfully pretended to think 



ROYAL ROBES DO NOT MAKE A KING 



129 



so, and kept thirty clerks up all night writing out a charter 
accordingly. 

Now, Wat Tyler himself wanted more than this. He 
wanted the entire abolition of the forest laws. He was not 
at Mile-End with the rest, but, while that meeting was being 
held, broke into the Tower of London and slew the arch- 
bishop and the treasurer, for whose heads the people had 
cried loudly the day before. He and his men even thrust 
their swords into the bed of the Princess of Wales, while the 




RIOTING WENT ON THE STREETS 



Princess was in it, to make certain that none of their enemies 
were concealed there. 

So Wat and his men still continued armed, and rode 
about the city. Next morning the king with a small train 
of some sixty gentlemen — among whom was Walworth, the 
mayor — rode into Smithfield, and saw Wat and his people 
at a little distance. Says Wat to his men, "There is the 
king. I will go speak with him, and tell him what we want." 
9 



13° ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

Straightway Wat rode up to him and began to talk. 
"King," says Wat, " dost thou see all my men there?" 

" Ah ! " says the king. " Why ? " 

"Because," says Wat, "they are all at my command, 
and have sworn to do whatever I bid them." 

Some declared afterwards that as Wat said this he laid 
his hand on the king's bridle. Others declared that he was 
seen to play with his own dagger. I think, myself, that he 
just spoke to the king like a rough, angry man, as he was, 
and did nothing more. At any rate, he was expecting no 
attack and preparing for no resistance, when Walworth, the 
mayor, did the not very valiant deed of drawing a short sword 
and stabbing him in the throat. He dropped from his horse, 
and one of the king's people speedily finished him. So fell 
Wat Tyler. Fawners and flatterers made a mighty triumph of 
it, and set up a cry which will occasionally find an echo to 
this day. But Wat was a hard-working man, who had suf- 
fered much, and had been foully outraged, and it is probable 
that he was a man of much higher nature and a much braver 
spirit than any of the parasites who exulted then, or have 
exulted since, over his defeat. 

Seeing Wat down, his men immediately bent their bows 
to avenge his fall. If the young king had not had presence 
of mind at that dangerous moment, both he and the mayor to 
boot might have followed Tyler pretty fast. But the king, 
riding up to the crowd, cried out that Tyler was a traitor, and 
that he would be their leader. They were so taken by sur- 
prise that they set up a great shouting, and followed the boy 
until he was met at Islington by a large body of soldiers. 

The end of this rising was the then usual end. As soon 
as the king found himself safe he unsaid all he had said and 
undid all he had done ; some fifteen hundred of the rioters 



ROYAL ROBES DO NOT MAKE A KING 131 

were tried (mostly in Essex) with great rigor and executed 
with great cruelty. Many of them were hanged on gibbets 
and left there as a terror to the country people ; and, because 
their miserable friends took some of the bodies down to bury, 
the king ordered the rest to be chained up — which was the 
beginning of the barbarous custom of hanging in chains. 
The king's falsehood in this business makes such a pitiful 
figure that I think Wat Tyler appears in history as beyond 
comparison the truer and more respectable man of the two. 

Richard was now sixteen years of age and married Anne 
of Bohemia, an excellent princess, who was called the "good 
Queen Anne." She deserved a better husband, for the kine 
had been fawned and flattered into a treacherous, wasteful, 
dissolute, bad young man. 

He was under the power of the great Duke of Gloucester 
for some time. But Gloucester's power was not to last for- 
ever. He held it only one year, in which the famous battle 
of Otterbourne, sung in the old ballad of Chevy Chase, was 
fought. When the year was out, the king, turning suddenly 
to Gloucester in the midst of a great council, said, "Uncle, 
how old am I?" "Your Highness," returned the duke, "is 
in your twenty-second year." "Am I so much?" said the 
king; "then I will manage my own affairs! I am much 
obliged to you, my good lords, for your past services, but I 
need them no more." He followed this up by appointing a 
new chancellor and a new treasurer, and announced to the 
people that he had resumed the government. He held it for 
eight years without opposition. Through all that time he 
kept his determination to revenge himself some day upon his 
uncle Gloucester in his own breast. 

At last the good queen died ; and then the king, desir- 
ing to take a second wife, proposed to his council that he 



132 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

should marry Isabella of France, the daughter of Charles the 
Sixth, who, the French courtiers said (as the English cour- 
tiers had said of Richard), was a marvel of beauty and wit, 
and quite a phenomenon, of seven years old. The council 
was divided about this marriage, but it took place. It secured 
peace between England and France for a quarter of a century, 
but it was strongly opposed to the prejudices of the English 
people. The Duke of Gloucester, who was anxious to take 
the occasion of making himself popular, declaimed against it 
loudly, and this at length decided the king to execute the 
vengeance he had been nursing so long. 

He went with a gay company to the Duke of Gloucester's 
house, Pleshey Castle, in Essex, where the duke, suspecting 
nothing, came out into the court-yard to receive his royal 
visitor. While the king conversed in a friendly manner with 
the duchess, the duke was quietly seized, hurried away, 
shipped for Calais and lodged in the castle there. His 
friends, the Earls of Arundel and Warwick, were taken in 
the same treacherous manner and confined to their castles. A 
few days after, at Nottingham, they were impeached for high 
treason. The Earl of Arundel was condemned and be- 
headed and the Earl of Warwick was banished. Then a 
writ was sent by a messenger to the Governor of Calais, 
requiring him to send the Duke of Gloucester over to be 
tried. In three days he returned an answer that he could 
not do that, because the Duke of Gloucester had died in 
prison. The duke was declared a traitor, his property was 
confiscated to the king, a real or pretended confession he 
had made in prison to one of the justices of the common 
pleas was produced against him, and there was an end of 
the matter. How the unfortunate duke died very few cared 
to know. Whether he really died naturally, whether he 



ROYAL ROBES DO NOT MAKE A KING 133 

killed himself, whether by the king's order he was strangled 
or smothered between two beds (as a serving-man of the 
governor's, named Hall, did afterwards declare), cannot be 
discovered. There is not much doubt that he was killed, 
somehow or other, by his nephew's orders. Among the 
most active nobles in the proceedings were the king's cousin, 
Henry Bolingbroke, whom the king had made Duke of 
Hereford to smooth down the old family quarrels, and some 
others who had in the family plotting times done just such 
acts themselves as they now condemned in the duke. They 
seem to have been a corrupt set of men ; but such men were 
easily found about the court in such days. 

The people murmured at all this, and were still very sore 
about the French marriage. The nobles saw how little the 
king cared for law and how crafty he was, and began to be 
somewhat afraid of themselves. The king's life was a life of 
continued feasting and excess ; his retinue, down to the 
meanest servants, were dressed in the most costly manner, 
and caroused at his table, it is related, to the number of ten 
thousand every day. He himself, surrounded by a body of 
ten thousand archers, and enriched by a duty on wool, which 
the Commons had granted him for life, saw no danger of 
ever being otherwise than powerful and absolute, and was as 
fierce and haughty as a king could be. 

He had two of his old enemies left, in the persons of the 
Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk. Sparing these no more 
than the others, he tampered with the Duke of Hereford until 
he got him to declare, before the Council, that the Duke of 
Norfolk had lately held some treasonable talk with him as he 
was riding near Brentford, and that he had told him, among 
other things, that he could not believe the king's oath — which 
nobody could, I should think. For this treachery he obtained 



i34 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

a pardon, and the Duke of Norfolk was summoned to appear 
and defend himself. As he denied the charge, and said his 
accuser was a liar and a traitor, both noblemen, according to 
the manner of those times, were held in custody, and the 
truth was ordered to be decided by wager of battle at Cov- 
entry. This wager of battle meant that whosoever won the 
combat was to be considered in the right, which nonsense 
meant, in effect, that no strong man could ever be wrong. A 
great holiday was made, a great crowd assembled, with much 
parade and show, and the two combatants were about to rush 
at each other with their lances, when the king, sitting in a 
pavilion to see fair, threw down the truncheon he carried in 
his hand and forbade the battle. The Duke of Hereford 
was to be banished for ten years and the Duke of Norfolk 
was to be banished for life. So said the king. The Duke 
of Hereford went to France, and went no farther. The 
Duke of Norfolk made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and 
afterwards died at Venice of a broken heart. 

After this the king went on faster and fiercer in his ca- 
reer. The Duke of Lancaster, who was the father of the 
Duke of Hereford, died soon after the departure of his son ; 
and the king, although he had solemnly granted to that son 
leave to inherit his father's property, if it should come to him 
during his banishment, immediately seized it all, like a rob- 
ber. The judges were so afraid of him that they disgraced 
themselves by declaring this theft to be just and lawful. His 
avarice knew no bounds. He outlawed seventeen counties 
at once on a frivolous pretence, merely to raise money by 
way of fines for misconduct. In short, he did as many dis- 
honest things as he could, and cared so little for the discon- 
tent of his subjects — though even the spaniel favorites began 
to whisper to him that there was such a thing as discontent 



ROYAL ROBES DO NOT MAKE A KING 



i35 



afloat — that he took that time, of all others, for leaving Eng- 
land and making an expedition against the Irish. 

He was scarcely gone, leaving the Duke of York regent 
in his absence, when his cousin, Henry of Hereford, came 
over from France to claim the rights of which he had been 
so monstrously deprived. He was immediately joined by the 
two great Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland ; and his 
uncle, the regent, finding the king's cause unpopular and the 
disinclination of the army to 
act against Henry very strong, 
withdrew the royal forces to- 
wards Bristol. Henry, at the 
head of an army, came from 
Yorkshire (where he had 
landed) to London and fol- 
lowed him. They joined their 
forces — how they brought that 
about is not distinctly under- 
stood — and proceeded to 
Bristol Castle, whither three 
noblemen had taken the 
young queen. The castle 
surrendering, they presently 
put those three noblemen to 
death. The regent then re- 
mained there and Henry went on to Chester. 

All this time the boisterous weather had prevented the 
king from receiving intelligence of what had occurred. At 
length it was conveyed to him in Ireland and he sent over the 
Earl of Salisbury, who, landing at Conway, rallied the Welsh- 
men and waited for the king a whole fortnight ; at the end of 
that time the Welshmen, who were perhaps not very warm 




RICHARD WENT FROM CASTLE TO CASTLE 



1 36 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

for him in the beginning, quite cooled down and went home. 
When the king did land on the coast at last he came with a 
pretty good power; but his men cared nothing for him and 
quickly deserted. Supposing the Welshmen to be still at 
Conway, he disguised himself as a priest and made for that 
place in company with his two brothers and some few of their 
adherents. But there were no Welshmen left — only Salis- 
bury and a hundred soldiers. In this distress the king's two 
brothers, Exeter and Surrey, offered to go to Henry to learn 
what his intentions were. Surrey, who was true to Richard, 
was put into prison. Exeter, who was false, took the royal 
badge, which was a hart, off his shield, and assumed the 
rose, the badge of Henry. After this it was pretty plain to 
the king what Henry's intentions were, without sending any 
more messengers to ask. 

The fallen king-, thus deserted, hemmed in on all sides 
and pressed with hunger, rode here and rode there, and went 
to this castle and went to that castle, endeavoring to obtain 
some provisions, but could find none. He rode wretchedly 
back to Conway, and there surrendered himself to the Earl 
of Northumberland, who came from Henry in reality to take 
him prisoner, but in appearance to offer terms, and whose 
men were hidden not far off. By this earl he was conducted 
to the Castle of Flint, where his cousin Henry met him and 
dropped on his knee, as if he were still respectful to his 
sovereign. 

"Fair cousin of Lancaster," said the king, "you are very 
welcome" (very welcome, no doubt; but he would have been 
more so in chains, or without a head). 

"My lord," replied Henry, "I am come a little before 
my time ; but with your good pleasure I will show you the 
reason. Your people complain, with some bitterness, that 



ROYAL ROBES DO NOT MAKE A KING 137 

you have ruled them vigorously for two-and-twenty years. 
Now, if it pleases God, I will help you to govern them better 
in future." 

"Fair cousin," replied the abject king, "since it pleaseth 
you, it pleaseth me mightily." 

After this the trumpet sounded, and the king was stuck 
on a wretched horse and carried prisoner to Chester, where 
he was made to issue a proclamation calling a Parliament. 
From Chester he was taken on towards London. At Lich- 
field he tried to escape by getting out of a window and 
letting himself down into a garden ; it was all in vain, how- 
ever, and he was carried on and shut up in the Tower, where 
no one pitied him, and where the whole people, whose 
patience he had quite tired out, reproached him without 
mercy. Before he got there, it is related that his very dog 
left him, and departed from his side to lick the hand of 
Henry. 

The day before the Parliament met, a deputation went to 
this wretched king and told him that he had promised the 
Earl of Northumberland at Conway Castle to resign the 
crown. He said he was quite ready to do it, and signed 
a paper in which he renounced his authority and absolved 
his people from their allegiance to him. He had so little 
spirit left that he gave his royal ring to his triumphant 
cousin Henry with his own hand, and said that if he could 
have had leave to appoint a successor that same Henry was 
the man of all others whom he would have named. Next 
day the Parliament assembled in Westminster Hall, where 
Henry sat at the side of the throne, which was empty and 
covered with a cloth of gold. The paper just signed by the 
king was read to the multitude amid shouts of joy, which 
were echoed through all the streets ; when some of the noise 



138 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

had died away the king was formally deposed. Then Henry 
arose, and, making the sign of the cross on his forehead and 
breast, challenged the realm of England as his right; the 
Archbishops of Canterbury and York seated him on the 
throne. 

The multitude shouted again, and the shouts re-echoed 
throughout all the streets. No one remembered now that 
Richard the Second had ever been the most beautiful, the 
wisest and the best of princes ; and he now made living a 
far more sorry spectacle in the Tower of London than Wat 
Tyler had made lying dead among the hoofs of the royal 
horses in Smithfield. 

The poll-tax died with Wat. The smiths to the king 
and royal family could make no chains in which the king 
could hang the people's recollection of him ; so the poll-tax 
was never collected. 




TRANCE- THAT CAN- BE -WON" 
! WITH -A- DANCE ORASONG.' 




and toe 

England in the Year, a. d., 1400. 



HENRY the Fourth was the Black Prince's nephew, and 
he came to be king of England. His son was 
Henry the Fifth, the greatest of the Plantagenet 
kings. When he was a young man, and only Prince 
of Wales, he was very wild and fond of games and jokes. 
They used to call him Harry Madcap. 

Once, when he got into some trouble or other, his father, 
who was ill, sent for him, and he went at once in a fine dress 
that he had had made for a fancy dress party. It was of light 
blue satin with odd puckers in the sleeves, and at every 
pucker the tailor had left a little bit of blue thread and a tag 
like a needle. The king was very angry with the prince for 
daring to come into the royal presence in such a silly coat. 
Then Prince Harry said — 

"Dear father, as soon as I heard that you wanted me, I 
was in such a hurry to come to you that I had no time to 
even think of my coat, much less change it." 
And so the king forgave him. 

Another time, one of his servants got into trouble and 

139 



i 4 o ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

was taken before the Chief Judge Sir William Gascoyne. 
The Prince went directly to the Court where the judge was, 
and said — 

" Lord Judge, this is my servant, and you must let him 
go, for I am the king's son." 

"No," said the judge, "I sit here in the place of the 
king himself, to do justice to all his subjects, and were this 
man the Prince of Wales himself, instead of being his servant, 
he should be punished in that he has offended against the law." 
The prince was so angry that he actually forgot himself 
so far as to strike Sir William Gascoyne. The good judge 
did not hesitate a minute, but said very earnestly : 

"You have insulted 

the king himself, in my 

>w> v~v ; V*t@*t person, since I sit here 

in his place to do jus- 
tice. The common folks 
who offend against the. 
law offend merely against 

THE PRINCE AND THE JUDGE. fae 1-^g . fr^ y QU> y OUn g 

man, are a double traitor to your king and your father." 

And he sent the prince to prison. 

Henry begged the good judge's pardon afterwards, and 
when he came to the throne he thanked him for having 
behaved so justly and wisely, and gave him great honor 
because he had not been afraid to do his duty without respect 
of rank, and Henry behaved to the judge like a good son to 
a good father. 

No king of England was ever more wise or brave or just 
than Henry the Fifth ; and even now he is remembered with 
affection. One of Shakespeare's most splendid plays is writ- 
ten about him, and, when you have once read that, you will 





HENRY THE FIFTH 14 r 

always remember and love Henry the Fifth, as all English- 
men and their kinsmen should do. 

At the very beginning of his reign the wars with France 
began again. The king sent to France and claimed some 
lands that had belonged to Edward the Third ; and the young 
prince of France sent back the message — "There is nothing 
in France that can be won with a dance or a song. You can- 
not get dukedoms in France by playing and feasting, and the 
prince sends you some- 
thing that will suit you 
better than lands in 
France. He has sent 
you a barrel of tennis 
balls, and bids you play 
with them and let serious 
matters be." Then King 
Henry was very angry, and said — "We thank him for his 
present. 

When we have matched our rackets to these balls, 
We will in France, by God's grace, play a set 
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard. 

Before I was King of England I was wild and merry because 
I knew not how great and solemn a state waited for me. I 
have played in my youth like a common man because I was 
only Prince of Wales ; but now that I am King of England I 
will rise up with so full a glory that I will dazzle all the eyes 
of France." These words had the true royal ring in them, 
and won the hearts not only of his wise men, but of the com- 
mon people who flocked to his standard when they heard the 
message their king had received. 

Henry sailed to France and besieged a town called Har- 
fieur. He spoke to the soldiers before they attacked the town. 




142 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

"Break down the wall and go through," he said, "or 
close the wall up with our English dead. 

Bend every spirit 
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English, 
Whose blood is fetched from fathers of war proof. 
Be copy now to men of grosser blood 
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen, 
Whose limbs were made in England, let us swear 
That you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not ; 
Cry God for Harry, England, and Saint George." 

With an army in all of thirty thousand men, he besieged 
the town of Harfleur both by sea and land for five weeks ; 
at the end of which time the town surrendered, and the inhab- 
itants were allowed to depart with only fivepence each, and a 
part of their clothes. All the rest of their possessions was 
divided amongst the English army. But that army suffered so 
much, in spite of its successes, from disease and privation, 
that it was already reduced one-half. Still, the king was 
determined not to retire until he had struck a greater blow. 
Therefore, against the advice of all his counsellors, he moved 
on with his little force toward Calais. When he came up to the 
river Somme he was unable to cross, in consequence of the ford 
being fortified ; and, as the English moved up the left bank 
of the river looking for a crossing, the French, who had broken 
all the bridges, moved up the right bank, watching them, and 
waiting to attack them when they should try to pass it. At 
last the English found a crossing, and got safely over. The 
French held a council of war at Rouen, resolved to give the 
English battle, and sent heralds to King Henry to know by 
which road he was going. " By the road that will take me 
straight to Calais ! " said the king, and he sent them away 
with a present of a hundred crowns. 



HENRY THE FIFTH 



He 



The English moved on until they beheld the French, 
and then the king gave orders to form in line of battle. The 
French, not coming on, the army broke up, after remaining 
in battle array till night, and got good rest and refreshment 
at a neighboring village. The French were now all lying in 
another village, through which they knew the English must 
pass. They were resolved that the English p 
should begin the battle. The English had|ij 
no means of retreat, if their king had any 
such intention ; and so the two armies V 
passed the night close together. 

To understand these armies well, you 
must bear in mind that the immense i£ 
French army had, among its notable per- it 
sons, almost the whole of that wicked hi 
nobility whose debauchery had made, 
France a desert ; and so besotted were 
they by pride, and by contempt for the 
common people, that they had scarcely 
any bowmen (if, indeed, they had any at 
all) in their whole enormous number, 
which, compared with the English army, 
was at least as six to one ; for these proud 
fools had said that the bow was not a fit ^^^^^^^^^^ 
weapon for knightly hands, and that AN archer. 
France must be defended by gentlemen only. We shall see 
presently what kind of a hand these " gentlemen " made of it. 

Now, on the English side, among the little force, there 
was a good proportion of men who were not gentlemen, by 
any means, but who were good stout archers for all that. 
Among them, in the morning, having slept little at night, 
while the French were carousing and making sure of victory, 




i44 ROYAL CHLDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

the king rode, on a gray horse, wearing on his head a helmet 
of shining steel, surmounted by a crown of gold, sparkling 
with precious stones, and bearing over his armor, embroidered 
together, the arms of England and the arms of France. The 
archers looked at the shining helmet, and the crown of gold, 
and the sparkling jewels, and admired them all ; but what 
they admired most was the king's cheerful face, and his bright 
blue eye, as he told them, that for himself, he had made up 
his mind to conquer there or to die there, and that England 
should never have a ransom to pay for him. 

Though they were in a strange country and many times 
outnumbered by their foes, the knights and archers kept up a 
brave heart, as Englishmen have done many's .the good time, 
all the world over. So few were they that the Earl of West- 
moreland said, just before the battle : 

" Oh, that we now had here, 
But one ten thousand of those men in England 
That do no work to-day!" 

The king came in just as he was saying this, and said : 
" No, if we are marked to die, we are enough for our 
country to lose. If we are to live, the fewer there are of us 
the greater share of honor. I do not covet gold or feasting, 
or fine garments, but honor I do covet. Wish not another 
man from England. I would not lose the honor of this fight 
by sharing it with more men than are here, and if any among 
our soldiers has no desire to fight, let him go. He shall 
have a passport and money to take him away. I should be 
ashamed to die in such a man's company. We need not 
wish for men from England. It is the men in England who 
will envy us when they hear of the great crown of honor and 
glory that we have won this day. This is Saint Crispin's 



HENRY THE FIFTH H5 

day. Every man who fights on this day will remember it 
and be honored to the last hour of his life. Crispin's 
day shall ne'er go by from this day to the ending of the world, 

But we in it shall be remembered, 

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, 

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me 

Shall be my brother, be he ne'er so vile. 

And gentlemen in England now abed 

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, 

And hold their manhood cheap while any speaks 

That fought with us upon St. Crispin's day. 

Lord Salisbury came in as the king was saying this. 

"The French are in battle order," he said, "and ready 
to charge upon our men." 

"All things are ready," said the king quietly, "if our 
minds are ready." 

" Perish the man whose mind is backwark now," said 
Westmoreland. 

"You wish no more for men from England then," said 
the king, smiling. 

And Westmoreland, inspired with courage and confi- 
dence by the king's brave speech, answered : 

"I would to God, my king, that you and I alone without 
more help might fight this battle out to-day." 

"Why, now you have unwished five thousand men," 
said the king laughing, "and that pleases me more than to 
wish us one more. God be with you all." 

So they went into battle tired as they were. 

The verses we have given are taken from Shakespeare's 
noble play of " Henry V." Let us now go on with the story 
of the famous battle, as told, in his interesting way, by Charles 
Dickens. 



146 



ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 



So great were the numbers of the French that they were 
drawn up in a solid mass thirty men deep. The little English 
force was only three deep, and looked as if it would be quite 
swallowed up. The ground between the two armies was very 
rough and difficult, so Henry wisely waited for the French, 
for he knew that when they moved their compact ranks must 
be thrown into confusion, and then would come a good time 
for the English to strike. 

As they did not move he sent off two parties, — one to 
lie concealed in a wood on the left of the French, the other 




THE EARL OF WESTMORELAND 



to set fire to some houses behind the French after the battle 
should be begun. This was scarely done, when three of the 
proud French gentlemen, who were to defend their country 
without any help from the base peasants, came riding out, 
calling upon the English to surrender. The king warned 
those gentlemen to retire with all speed, if they cared for their 
lives, and ordered the English banners to advance. Upon 
that, Sir Thomas Erpingham, a great English general who 
commanded the archers, threw his truncheon into the air joy- 
fully ; and all the Englishmen, kneeling down upon the 



HENRY THE FIFTH 



147 



ground, and biting it as if they took possession of the coun- 
try, rose up with a great shout, and fell upon the French. 

Every archer was furnished with a great stake tipped with 
iron, and his or- 



ders were, to 
thrust this stake 
into the ground, 
to discharge his 
arrow, and then 
to fall back when 
the French horse- 
men came on. 
As the haughty 
French gentle- 
men who were 
to break the Eng- 
lish archers, and 
utterly destroy 
them with their 
knightly lances, 
came riding up, 
they were re~p 
ceived with such 
a blinding storm 
of arrows that 
they broke and 
turned. As at 
Crecy, the white 
feathers of the arrows seemed to fill the air like snow. 
The proud French array was soon utterly broken. Horses and 
men rolled over one another, and the confusion was terrific. 
Those who rallied, and charged the archers, got among 




AT THE BATTLE OF AGINCOURT. 



i43 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

the stakes on slippery and boggy ground, and were so bewil- 
dered that the English archers — who wore no armor, and even 
took off their leathern coats to be more active — cut them to 
pieces, root and branch. Only three French horsemen got 
within the stakes, and those were instantly despatched. All 
this time the dense French army, being in armor, were sinking 
knee deep into the mire ; while the light English archers, half 
naked, were as fresh and active as if they were fighting on a 
marble floor. This famous fight occurred in 141 5. 

But now the second division of the French, coming to 
the relief of the first, closed up in a firm mass ; the English, 
headed by the king, attacked them ; and the deadliest part of 
the battle began. The king's brother, the Duke of Clarence, 
was struck down, and numbers of the French surrounded 
him; but King Henry, standing over the body, fought like a 
lion until they were beaten off. Presently came up a band 
of eighteen French knights, bearing the banner of a certain 
French lord, who had sworn to kill or take the English king. 
One of them struck him such a blow with a battle-axe, that 
he reeled, and fell upon his knees ; but his faithful men, 
immediately closing round him, killed every one of those 
eighteen knights, and so that French lord never kept his oath. 

The French Duke of Alencon, seeing this, made a des- 
perate charge, and cut his way close up- to the royal standard 
of England. He beat down the Duke of York, who was 
standing near it ; and when the king came to his rescue, 
struck off a piece of the crown he wore. But he never struck 
another blow in this world ; for even as he was in the act of 
saying who he was, and that he surrendered to the king, and 
even as the king stretched out his hand to give him a safe 
and honorable acceptance of the offer, he fell dead, pierced by 
innumerable wounds. 



HENRY THE FIFTH 



149 



The death of this nobleman decided the battle. The 
third division of the French army, which had never struck a 
blow yet, and which was, in itself, more than double the 
whole English power, broke and fled. At this time of the 
fight, the English, who as yet had made no prisoners, began 
to take them in immense numbers, and were still occupied in 
doing so, or in killing those who would not surrender, when 
a great noise arose in the rear of the French, — their flying 
banners were seen to stop, — and King Henry, supposing 
a great reinforce- 
ment to have ar- 
rived, gave orders 
that all the pris- 
oners should be 
put to death. As 
soon as itwas found 
that the noise was 
only occasioned by 
a body of plunder- 
ing peasants, the 
terrible slaughter 
was soon stopped. 

Then King Henry called to him the French herald, and 
asked him to whom the victory belonged. 

The herald replied, "To the King of England." 

" We have not made this havoc and slaughter," said the 
king. "It is the wrath of Heaven on the sins of France. 
What is the name of that castle yonder?" 

"The herald answered him, " My lord, it is the Castle of 
Azincour." 

Said the king, "From henceforth this battle shall be 
known to posterity by the name of the battle of Azincourt" 




THE BABY KING. 



i5o ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

The English historians have made it Agincourt, and under 
that name it will ever be famous in English annals. 

The loss upon the French side was enormous. Three 
dukes were killed, two more were taken prisoners ; seven 
counts were killed, three more were taken prisoners ; and ten 
thousand knights and gentlemen were slain upon the field. 
The English loss amounted to sixteen hundred men, among 
whom were the Duke of York and the Earl of Suffolk. 

There is something sweet and pitiful in the story of the 
death of these two noble men. As the Earl of Suffolk lay 
sorely wounded and dying, the Duke of York, his warm 
friend, also wounded to death, dragged himself to his side 
and took him by the beard and kissed his wounds, crying out, 
as Shakespeare tells us, 

" Tarry, dear Cousin Suffolk, 
My soul shall keep thine company to heaven, 
Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast, 
As in this glorious and well-foughten field 
We kept together in our chivalry." 

Then he put his two arms around Suffolk's neck, and 
the two friends died together. But they had done their duty 
for England in life, and the battle was won. 

Peace was made with France, and to seal the peace Henry 
married the French princess Katherine. A little son was 
born to them at Windsor, and was called Henry of Windsor, 
Prince of Wales ; he was afterwards Henry the Sixth. When 
Henry the Fifth knew he was going to die, he called his 
brothers together and gave them good advice about ruling 
England and France, and begged them to take great care of 



HENRY THE FIFTH 151 

his little son. Henry the Sixth was not a year old when his 
father died, and was crowned at once. 

One of the finest English poems we have, was written 
about the battle of Agincourt. 

1. 

Fair stood the wind for France 
When we our sails advance, 
Nor now to prove our chance 

Longer will tarry ; 
But putting to the main 
At Caux, the mouth of Seine, 
With all his martial train, 

Landed King Harry. 

11. 
And turning to his men, 
Quoth our brave Harry then, 
Though they be one to ten, 

Be not amazed. 
Yet have we well begun ; 
Battles so bravely won 
Have ever to the sun 

By fame been raised. 

in. 

And for myself (quoth he) 
This my full rest shall be, 
England ne'er mourn for me, 

No more esteem me. 
Victor I will remain, 
Or on this earth lie slain, 
Never shall she sustain 

Loss to redeem me. 



i 5 2 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



Poictiers and Crecy tell 

When most their pride did swell, 

Under our swords they fell ; 

No less our skill is 
Then when our grandsire great, 
Claiming the regal seat, 
By many a warlike feat 

Lopped the French lilies. 



They now to fight are gone, 
Armor on armor shone, 
Drum now to drum did groan, 

To hear was wonder ; 
That with the cries they make 
The very earth did shake, 
Trumpet to trumpet spake, 

Thunder to thunder. 



With Spanish yew so strong, 
Arrows a cloth-yard long, 
That like to serpents stung, 

Piercing the weather ; 
None from his fellow starts, 
But playing manly parts, 
And like true English hearts, 

Stuck close together. 



VII. 

When down their bows they threw 
And forth their bilbos drew, 
And on the French they flew, 
Not one was tardy ; 



HENRY THE FIFTH 153 

Arms were from shoulders sent, 
Scalps to the teeth were rent, 
Down the French peasants went — 
Our men were hardy. 



This while our noble king, 
His broadsword brandishing, 
Down the French host did ding. 

As to o'erwhelm it. 
And many a deep wound lent 
His arms with blood besprent, 
And many a cruel rent 

Bruising his helmet. 



Upon Saint Crispin's day 
Fought was this noble fray, 
Which fame did not delay 

To England to carry. 
O when shall Englishmen 
With such acts fill a pen, 
Or England breed again 

Such a King Harry ? 




154 




and Queeq JlZargat/ef. 



In the year 1 422, when King Henry Fifth died, most people 
in England were very ignorant. They believed in magic and 
witches, and anything they could not understand they at once 
believed to be done by magic. So when young Henry, the 
boy king, grew up a weak young man in mind and body, the 
doctors were not clever enough to find out what was the matter 
with him, and the people believed he had been bewitched; 
and the wife of his guardian, Duke Humphrey, was accused 
of having bewitched him. They said that this poor lady, 
Eleanor Cobham, had made a wax figure of the king and 
melted it before the fire, and that as it melted, the king's 
health and wits melted away with it. She was tried for this 
and found guilty. 

She had the good luck not to be burned alive — a thing 
which very often happened to people who were said to be 
witches. But she was made to walk in a white sheet with 
bare head and bare feet, carrying a lighted candle, through 
the streets of London, to show that she was sorry for what 

155 



156 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



she had never done. Then she was sent out of England for 
ever, and the disgrace of this broke her husband's heart, so 
that he died. 

During this period the wars in France began again. The 
English got the better of the fighting, and France had almost 
lost all hope of getting back the kingdom when a young 
shepherdess, named Joan of Arc, dreamed that she saw the 
angels of God, and that they told her she should be the 
means of winning back his kingdom for the king of France. 
The remarkable adventures of this young French girl, 

who won back the honor 
and the kingdom of 
France from the Eng- 
lish, and died a terrible 
death after gaining im- 
mortal fame, are too 
wonderful and interest- 
ing to be told in a few 
words here. As she 
won her great renown 
by fighting against the 
English for the recovery 
of her native land, we 
shall tell her strange 
story in full in the next 
chapter, and confine our- 
selves here to the deeds of Henry Sixth. 

During all the fights of kings and barons, and French 
and English, which took place in these years, the poor people 
of England had from time to time tried to make the king and 
the nobles see how unhappy they were, and how much they 
were oppressed by the great lords. 




PRINCE EDWARD AND QUEEN MARGARET 



l 57 



In the reign of Richard Second, thirty or forty years 
before, the laborers of Kent and Essex had got together all 
their scythes and bill-hooks, and had made spears of poles 
with long knives tied at the end, and armed in this way they 
had marched to London to demand their rights, led by a 
good priest, John Ball, and by Wat Tyler, whose story we 
have already told. 

Again in the reign of the new King Henry the people of 
Kent grew very angry because France had been lost, and they 
were also made very miserable by the wickedness of the rich 
people. So 
they tried to 
call the king's 
attention to 
their wrongs, 
in the way 
they had done 
under Wat 
Tyler. The 
Kentish men 
rose up to the 
number of 
twenty thous- 
and, and under their leader, Jack Cade, they beat the royal 
army and killed its general. Then Jack dressed himself in 
the dead general's armor, and led his men to London. 

Jack passed into the city from Southwark, over the bridge, 
and entered it in triumph, giving the strictest orders to his 
men not to plunder. Having made a show of his forces 
there, while the citizens looked on quietly, he went back into 
Southwark in good order, and passed the night. Next day, 
he came back again, having got hold in the meantime of 




THE MAKING OF WAXEN IMAGES 



158 



ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 



Lord Say, an unpopular nobleman. Says Jack to the Lord 
Mayor and judges : "Will you be so good as to make a tribu- 
nal in Guildhall, and try me this nobleman?" The court 
being hastily made, he was found guilty, and Jack and his 
men cut his head off on Cornhill. They also cut off- the 
head of his son-in-law, and then went back in good order to 
Southwark again. 

But, although the citizens could bear the beheading of an 
unpopular lord, they could not bear to have their houses pil- 
laged. And it did so happen that Jack, after dinner — perhaps 




he had drunk a little too much — began to plunder the house 
where he lodged ; upon which, of course, his men began to 
imitate him. Wherefore, the Londoners took counsel with 
Lord Scales, who had a thousand soldiers in the Tower, and 
defended London Bridge and kept Jack and his people out. 
This advantage gained, it was resolved to divide Jack's army 
in the old way, by making a great many promises on behalf 
of the State, that they never intended to be performed. This 
did divide them. Some of Jack's men said that they ought 
to take the conditions which were offered, and others said 
that they ought not, for they were only a snare. Some went 



PRINCE EDWARD AND QUEEN MARGARET 



i59 



home at once; others stayed where they were; and all quar- 
reled among themselves. 

Jack Cade, seeing that all was at an end, and that his 
only hope for life was in flight, now mounted a good horse 
and galloped away into Sussex. But, there galloped after 
him on a better horse, one Alexander Iden, who came up 
with him, had a hard 
fight with him, and 
killed him. Jack's 
head was set aloft on 
London Bridge, with 
the face looking to- 
wards Blackheath, 
where he had raised 
his flag; and Alexander Iden got the 
thousand marks. As for the people, 
they got nothing whatever of what 
had been promised them. 

Henry Sixth grew up to be a 
very silly man. His wife, Margaret 
of Anjou, wanted to govern the king- 
dom herself. But many noblemen 
and gentlemen and the people of 
London wished to take away the 
crown from the poor king, and to 
have the Duke of York for king. Some gentlemen- were 
walking in the Temple garden after dinner, disputing about 
the king and the Duke of York. Some of the gentlemen did 
not like to speak out plainly and say which they preferred. 

Then said Richard Plantagenet, the leader of the Yorkist 
party: "Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak, 
let him that is a true-born gentleman and stands upon the 




i6o ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

honor of his birth, if he believes that I have spoken true, from 
off this briar pluck a white rose with me." 

The Earl of Somerset, who wanted Henry to remain 
king, said : 

" Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer, 
But dare maintain the party of the truth, 
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me." 

Then some plucked red and some plucked white roses ) 
and those that plucked red roses said: "We have our swords 
here, which shall dye your white rose in a bloody red." 
"Meantime," said the others, "your cheeks are as pale as our 
roses, for you are pale with fear, in witness that the truth is 
on our side." 

So they all quarreled and parted. The party of York 
was called the party of the white rose, and the party of Lan- 
caster, who wished Henry to be king, was called the party of 
the red rose. And this was the beginning of the Wars of the 
Roses, which lasted for thirty years. 

Queen Margaret got an army together to drive away the 
Duke of York. A battle was fought at Northampton, and 
Henry was taken prisoner. The queen, with the little Prince 
Edward, got away to Scotland, and the Duke of York ruled 
England with the king's consent. But the queen, who was 
very brave though very cruel, got together another army. 
She fought the Duke of York, and at last beat him at 
Wakefield. She cut off his head, put a paper crown 
upon it, and stuck it on one of the gates of York. His 
second son, Lord Rutland, cried out for mercy to Lord 
Clifford ; but Lord Clifford's father had been killed in one 
of the other battles, and he said: "As your father killed 
mine, I will kill you," and he plunged his dagger into Lord 
Rutland's heart. 



PRINCE EDWARD AND QUEEN MARGARET 



161 



A great many battles were fought, and thousands of 
Englishmen were killed. Poor King Henry hid for some 
time in Scotland, sleeping in woods and caves, and some- 




QUEEN MARGARET AND THE ROBBER 



times nearly dying of hunger. The queen got another 
army together, but she was beaten at Hexham. King Henry 
was taken prisoner and sent to the Tower. 



1 62 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

The queen and the young prince managed to get 
away into the woods. However, they were caught by two 
robbers, who took away the queen's jewels and bracelets 
and necklaces. The queen and prince stood trembling, 
feeling quite sure that the robbers would kill them. But 
the robbers could not agree about dividing the jewels, 
and while they were quarreling as to which should have 
the most, the queen caught up her little son in her arms 
and slipped quietly away among the dark bushes of the 
forest. There she wandered all night, hoping to meet 
with someone who was on her side, and who would help 
her to get away with her child to some safe place. At 
last she met a man with a spear and a sort of dagger. 
Seeing by her dress that she was a great lady, he spoke to 
her roughly and said — "Give me your jewels and money, or 
I will have your life." 

"My jewels and money have been taken from me," 
cried the poor queen. "I have nothing left but this, my 
only treasure." 

She pointed to the child and fell on her knees before 
the robber. 

"I am Margaret, Queen of England," she said "and 
this is my son, the young prince. The nobles and the 
people of England have forgotten what they owe to their 
king and their queen since they have set aside the laws of 
England. Show me now that an outlaw can be more 
gentle and more noble than they." 

"By my faith in God, I will," said the robber, touched 
by her appeal. He took her to his hut and hid her there 
till her enemies had ceased to look for her, and then he 
managed, by disguising her and the little prince, to get them 
safe over to Flanders. 



PRINCE EDWARD AND QUEEN MARGARET 



163 



This brave queen was not yet beaten. She got more 
men together and came to fight the new Duke of York, who 
had been made King of England. The new king had 
got over some German soldiers, who, instead of fighting 
with swords and bows and arrows, fought with strange new 
weapons — guns, which till then had never been used in war. 
He also used 
heavy cannon, 
and so it was 
that he beat 
Margaret. She 
lost the battle 
and was taken 
prisoner. Her 
young son too 
was found on the 
battlefield by the 
new king, who 
asked him how 
he dared to come 
over with an 
army. 

' ' I come to 
recover my fath- 
er's kingdom," 
said the brave 
youth. 

And the new king brutally struck him on his face with 
his glove, and one of his lords killed the boy with a dagger. 

Henry Sixth died in the Tower, a prisoner, and most 
people think he was murdered — a sad end for the son of the 
great king who won the battle of Agincourt. 




HENRY SIXTH A PRISONER IN THE TOWER 



164 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



Margaret lived miserably for nine years after her son, 
Prince Edward, was killed, and for five of those years she 
was kept a prisoner in the Tower. Then the King of France 
paid money for her, and she was allowed to go to France, 
where she died. 





flfeatb 

of 
©cleans 



A Girl Heroine who Frightened the English Army 



We have told you, in a previous story, how a brave 
French girl led the troops of her country against the English, 
and said we would give a more complete account of her life 
and adventures. This is the story told by Charles Dickens. 

In a remote village among some wild hills in the 
province of Lorraine in sunny France, there lived a 
countryman whose name was Jacques d'Arc. He had a 
daughter, Joan of Arc, who was at this time in her 
twentieth year: She had been a solitary girl from her 
childhood; she had often tended the sheep and cattle 
for whole days where no human figure was seen or 
human voice heard ; and she had often knelt, for hours 
together, in the gloomy, empty little village chapel, looking 
up at the altar and at the dim lamp burning before it, 
until she fancied that she saw shadowy figures standing 
there, and even that she heard them speak to her. The 
people in that part of France were very ignorant and super- 
stitious ; and they had many ghostly tales to tell about what 

165 



1 66 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

they had dreamed, and what they saw among the lonely hills 
when the clouds and the mists were resting on them. So 
they easily believed that Joan saw strange sights ; and they 
whispered among themselves that angels and spirits talked 
to her. 

At last, Joan told her father that she had one day been 
surprised by a great unearthly light, and had afterwards 
heard a solemn voice, which said it was St. Michael's voice, 
telling her that she was to go and help the dauphin. Soon 
after this (she said), St. Catharine and St. Margaret had 
appeared to her with sparkling crowns upon their heads, and 
had encouraged her to be virtuous and resolute. These 
visions had returned sometimes, but the voices very often ; 
and the voices always said, "Joan, thou art appointed by 
Heaven to go and help the dauphin!" She almost always 
heard them when the chapel bells were ringing. 

There is no doubt, now, that Joan believed she saw and 
heard these things. It is very well known that such delu- 
sions are a disease which is not by any means uncommon. 
It is probable enough that there were figures of St. Michael 
and St. Catherine and St. Margaret in the little chapel (where 
they would be very likely to have shining crowns upon their 
heads) and that they first gave Joan the idea of those three 
personages. She had long been a moping, fanciful girl ; and 
though she was a very good girl, I daresay she was a little 
vain and wishful for notoriety. 

Her father, something wiser than his neighbors, said, "I 
tell thee, Joan, it is thy fancy. Thou hadst better have a 
kind husband to take care of thee, girl, and work to employ 
thy mind!" But Joan told him in reply, that she had taken 
a vow never to have a husband, and that she must go, as 
Heaven directed her, to help the dauphin. 



GIRL HEROINE WHO FRIGHTENED ENGLISH ARMY 167 

It happened, unfortunately for her farthers persuasions, 
and most unfortunately for the poor girl too, that a party of 
the dauphin's enemies found their way into the village, while 
Joan's disorder was at this point, and burnt the chapel, and 
drove out the inhabi- 
tants. The cruelties she 
saw committed touched 
Joan's heart, and made 
her worse. She said 
that the voices and the 
figures were now con- 
tinually before her; that 
they told her she was 
the girl who, according 
to an old prophecy, was 
to deliver France, and 
she must go and help 
the dauphin, and must 
remain with him until 
he should be crowned 
at Rheims ; and that she 
must travel a long way 
to a certain lord, named 
Baudricourt, who could, 
and would, bring her 
into the dauphin's 
presence. 

As her father still said, "I tell thee, Joan, it is thy fancy," 
she set off to find out this lord, accompanied by an uncle, a 
poor village wheelwright and cart maker, who believed in the 
reality of her visions. They traveled a long way, and went 
on and on, over a rough country, full of the Duke of Bur- 




1 68 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

gundy's men, and of all kinds of robbers and marauders, 
until they came to where the lord was. 

When the servants told him that there was a poor peasant- 
girl named Joan of Arc, accompanied by nobody but an old 
village wheelwright and cart-maker, who wished to see him, 
because she was commanded to help the dauphin and save 
France, Baudricourt, burst out laughing, and bade them send 
the girl away. But he soon heard so much about her linger- 
ing in the town, and praying in the churches, and seeing 
visions, and doing harm to no one, that he sent for her and 
questioned her. As she said the same things after she had 
been well sprinkled with holy water as she had said before 
the sprinkling, Baudricourt began to think there might be 
something in it. At all events, he thought it worth while to 
send her on to the town of Chinon, where the dauphin was. 
So he bought her a horse, and a sword, and gave her two 
squires to conduct her. As the voices had told Joan that she 
was to wear a man's dress, now she put one on, and girded 
her sword to her side, and bound spurs to her heels, and 
mounted her horse, and rode away with her two squires. As 
to her uncle, the wheelwright, he stood staring at his niece in 
wonder until she was out of sight — as well he might — and 
then went home again. The best place, too. 

Joan and her two squires rode on and on, until they came 
to Chinon, where she was, after some doubt, admitted into the 
dauphin's presence. Picking him out immediately from all 
his court, she told him that she came commanded by Heaven 
to subdue his enemies, and conduct him to his coronation at 
Rheims. She also told him (or he pretended so afterwards, 
to make the greater impression upon his soldiers) a number 
of his secrets known only to himself, and, furthermore, she 
said there was an old, old sword in the Cathedral of St. 



GIRL HEROINE WHO FRIGHTENED ENGLISH ARMY 169 

Catherine at Fierbois, marked with five old crosses on the 
blade, which St. Catherine had ordered her to wear. 

Now nobody knew anything about this old, old sword ; 
but when the cathedral came to be examined, which was 
immediately 
done, there, 
sure enough, 
the sword was 
found. The 
dauphin then 
required a num- 
ber of grave 
priests and 
bishops to give 
him their opin- 
ion whether the 
girl derived her 
power from 
good spirits or 
from evil spirits; 
which they held 
prodigiously 
long debates 
about, in the 
course of which 
several learned 
men fell fast as- 
leep, and snored 
loudly. At last, JOANOFARC 

when one gruff old gentleman had said to Joan, "What 
language do your voices speak?" and when Joan had replied 
to the gruff old gentleman, "a pleasanter language than 




170 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

yours," they agreed that it was all correct, and that Joan of 
Arc was inspired from Heaven. This wonderful circumstance 
put new heart into the dauphin's soldiers when they heard of 
it, and dispirited the English army, who took Joan for a witch. 

So Joan mounted horse again, and again rode on and on, 
until she came to Orleans. But she rode now as never 
peasant-girl had ridden yet. She rode upon a white war- 
horse, in a suit of glittering armor, with the old, old sword 
from the cathedral, newly burnished, in her belt, with a white 
flag carried before her upon which were a picture of God and 
the words Jesus Maria. In this splendid state, at the head of 
a great body of troops escorting provisions of all kinds for 
the starving inhabitants of Orleans, she appeared before that 
beleaguered city. 

When the people on the wall beheld her, they cried out, 
"The Maid is come! the Maid of the prophecy is come to 
deliver us!" And this, and the sight of the Maid fighting 
at the head of their men, made the French so bold, and 
made the English so fearful, that the English line of forts 
was soon broken, the troops and provisions were got into 
the town, and Orleans was saved. 

Joan, henceforth called the Maid of Orleans, remained 
within the walls for a few days, and caused letters to be 
thrown over, ordering Lord Suffolk and his Englishmen to 
depart. from before the town according to the will of Heaven. 
As the English general very positively declined to believe 
that Joan knew anything about the will of Heaven (which 
did not mend the matter with his soldiers ; for they 
stupidly said if she were not inspired she was a witch, 
and it was of no use to fight against a witch), she mounted 
her white war-horse again, and ordered her white banner to 
advance. 



GIRL HEROINE WHO FRIGHTENED ENGLISH ARMY 171 

The besiegers held the bridge, and some strong towers 
upon the bridge; and here the Maid of Orleans attacked 
them. The fight was fourteen hours long. She planted a 
scaling-ladder with her own hands, and mounted a tower- 
wall, but was struck by an English arrow in the neck, and 
fell into the trench. She was carried away, and the arrow 
was taken out, during which operation she screamed and 
cried with the pain, as any other girl might have done ; but 
presently she said that the voices were speaking to her, and 
soothing her to rest. After awhile she got up, and was again 
foremost in the fight. When the English, who had seen her 
fall and supposed her dead, saw this, they were troubled with 
the strangest fears ; and some of them cried out that they be- 
held St. Michael on a white horse (probably Joan herself) 
fighting for the French. They lost the bridge, and lost the 
towers, and next day set their chain of forts on fire and left 
the place. 

But as Lord Suffolk himself retired no further than the 
town of Jargean, which was only a few miles off, the Maid of 
Orleans besieged him there, and he was taken prisoner. As 
the white banner scaled the wall, she was struck upon the 
head with a stone, and was again tumbled down into the 
ditch; but she only cried all the more, as she lay there, "On, 
on, my countrymen ! and fear nothing ; for the Lord hath de- 
livered them into our hands !" After this new success of the 
Maid's several other fortresses and places which had pre- 
viously held out against the dauphin were delivered up 
without a battle ; and at Patay she defeated the remainder of 
the English army, and set up her victorious white banner on 
a field where twelve hundred Englishmen lay dead. 

She now urged the dauphin (who always kept out of the 
way when there was any fighting) to proceed to Rheims, as 



1 72 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

the first part of her mission was accomplished ; and to com- 
plete the whole by being crowned there. The dauphin was 
in no particular hurry to do this, as Rheims was a long way 
off, and the English and the Duke of Burgundy were still 
strong in the country through which the road lay. However, 
they set forth with ten thousand men, and again the Maid of 
Orleans rode on and on, upon her white war-horse, and in 
her shining armor. .Whenever they came to a town which 
yielded readily, the soldiers believed in her ; but whenever 
they came to a town which gave them any trouble, they be- 
gan to murmur that she was an impostor. The latter was 
particularly the case at Troyes, which finally yielded, how- 
ever, through the persuasion of one Richard, a friar of the 
place. Friar Richard was in the old doubt about the Maid 
of Orleans, until he had sprinkled her well with the holy 
water, and had also well sprinkled the threshold of the gate 
by which she came into the city. Finding that it made no 
change in her or the gate, he said, as the other grave old 
gentlemen had said, that it was all right, and became her 
great ally. 

So at last, by dint of riding on and on, the Maid of 
Orleans, and the dauphin, and the ten thousand sometimes 
believing and sometimes unbelieving men, came to Rheims. 
And in the great Cathedral of Rheims the dauphin actually 
was crowned Charles Seventh in a great assembly of the 
people. Then the Maid, who, with her white banner, stood 
beside the king in that hour of his triumph, kneeled down 
upon the pavement at his feet, and said, with tears, that 
what she had been inspired to do was done, and that the 
only recompense she asked for was, that she should now 
have leave to go back to her distant home, and her sturdily 
incredulous father, and her first simple escort, the village 



GIRL HEROINE WHO FRIGHTENED ENGLISH ARMY 173 

wheelwright and cart-maker. But the king said, "No!" and 
made her and her family as noble as a king could, and settled 
upon her the income of a count. 

Ah ! happy had it been for the Maid of Orleans if she 
had resumed her rustic dress that day, and had gone home 
to the little chapel and the wild hills, and had forgotten all 
these things, and had been a good man's wife, and had heard 
no stranger voices than the voices of little children ! 

It was not to be ; and she continued helping the king 
(she did a world for him, in alliance with Friar Richard), and 
trying to improve the lives of the coarse soldiers, and lead- 
ing a religious, an unselfish and a modest life, herself, beyond 
any doubt. Still, many times she prayed the king to let her 
go home ; and once she even took off her bright armor, and 
hung it up in a church, meaning never to wear it more. 
But the king always won her back again — while she was of 
any use to him ; and so she went on and on to her doom. 

.When the Duke of Bedford, who was a very able man, 
began to be active for England, and, by bringing the war 
back into France, and by holding the Duke of Burgundy to 
his faith, to distress and disturb Charles very much, Charles 
sometimes asked the Maid of Orleans what the voices said 
about it? But the voices had become (very ordinary voices 
in perplexed times) contradictory and confused, so that now 
they said one thing, and now said another, and the Maid 
lost credit every day. Charles marched on Paris, which was 
opposed to him, and attacked the suburb of St. Honore'. In 
this fight, being again struck down into the ditch, Joan was 
abandoned by the whole army. She lay down unaided 
among a heap of dead, and crawled out how she could. 
Then some of her believers went over to an opposition Maid, 
Catherine of La Rochelle, who said she was inspired to tell 



i74 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

where there were treasures of buried money — though she 
never did ; and then Joan accidently broke the old, old sword, 
and others said that her power was broken with it. Finally, 
at the siege of Compfegne, held by the Duke of Burgundy, 
where she did valiant service, she was basely left alone in a 
retreat, though facing about and fighting to the last ; and an 
archer pulled her off her horse. 

the uproar that was made, and the thanksgivings that 
were sung, about the capture of this one poor country girl! 
O the way in which she was demanded to be tried for sorcery 
and heresy, and anything else you like, by the Inquisitor- 
General of France, and by this great man, and by that great 
man until it is wearisome to think of! She was bought at 
last by the Bishop of Beauvais for ten thousand francs, and 
was shut up in her narrow prison — plain Joan of Arc again, 
and Maid of Orleans no more. 

1 should never have done if I were to tell you how they 
had Joan out to examine her, and cross-examine her, and 
re-examine her, and worry her into saying anything and 
everything; and how all sorts of scholars and doctors be- 
stowed their utmost tediousness upon her. Sixteen times 
she was brought out and shut up again, and worried and en- 
trapped and argued with, until she was heart-sick of the 
dreary business. On the last occasion of this kind she was 
brought into a burial-place at Rouen, dismally decorated with 
a scaffold and a stake and fagots, and the executioner, and a 
pulpit with a friar therein, and an awful sermon ready. It is 
very affecting to know that even at that pass the poor girl 
honored the mean vermin of a king, who had so used her for 
his purposes and so abandoned her; and that, while she had 
been regardless of reproaches heaped upon herself, she spoke 
out courageously for him. 



GIRL HEROINE WHO FRIGHTENED ENGLISH ARMY 175 

It was natural in one so young to hold to life. To save 
her life, she signed a declaration prepared for her — signed it 
with a cross, for she couldn't write — that all her visions and 
voices had come from the Devil. Upon her recanting the 
past, and protesting that she would never wear a man's dress 
in the future, she was condemned to imprisonment for life, 
"on the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction." 

But on the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction the 
visions and the voices soon returned. It was quite natural 
that they should do so, for that kind of disease is much 
aggravated by fasting, loneliness, and anxiety of mind. It 
was not only got out of Joan that she considered herself in- 
spired again, but she was taken in a man's dress, which had 
been left — to entrap her — in her prison, and which she put 
on in her solitude ; perhaps in remembrance of her past 
glories ; perhaps because the imaginary voices told her. For 
this relapse into the sorcery and heresy and anything else 
you like, she was sentenced to be burnt to death. And in 
the market-place of Rouen, in the hideous dress which the 
monks had invented for such spectacles, with priests and 
bishops sitting in a gallery looking on,- — though some had 
the Christian grace to go away, unable to endure the infa- 
mous scene — the shrieking girl, last seen amidst the smoke and 
fire holding a crucifix between her hands, last heard calling 
upon Christ, was burnt to ashes. They threw her ashes in 
the river Seine ; but they will rise against her murderers on 
the last day. 

From the moment of her capture, neither the French 
king nor one single man in all his court raised a finger to 
save her. It is no defence of them that they may have never 
really believed in her, or that they may have won her victories 
by. their skill and bravery. The more they pretended to be- 



176 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



lieve in her, the more they had caused her to believe in her- 
self; and she had ever been true to them, ever brave, ever 
nobly devoted. But it is no wonder that they who were in 
all things false to themselves, false to one another, false to 
their country, false to Heaven, false to earth, should be mon- 
sters of ingratitude and treachery to a helpless peasant-girl. 
In the picturesque old town of Rouen, where weeds and 
grass grow high on the cathedral towers, and the venerable 
Norman streets are still warm in the blessed sunlight, though 
the monkish fires that once gleamed horribly upon them have 
long grown cold, there is a statue of Joan of Arc, in the scene 
of her last agony, the square to which she has given its pres- 
ent name. I know some statues of modern times — even in 
the world's metropolis, I think — which commemorate less 
constancy, less earnestness, smaller claims upon the world's 
attention, and much greater impostors. 





Che "Princes 

England in the Year, A. d., 1461. 



THE Duke of York was now king, and was called Edward 
the Fourth, and during his reign England had peace, 
and as the people were not afraid of being robbed, 
they were able to turn their attention to making things, 
and so trade improved very much. 

Edward the Fourth has been called the Merchant King, 
because he went into trade on his own account, and used to 
send ships to all parts of the world with things made in Eng- 
land, to exchange them for foreign goods that were wanted 
by the people in his kingdom. 

He was a greedy, grasping man, but he took a great inter- 
est in books. It was in his reign that printing was first done 

in England. A man named Laurentius, of Haarlem, seems to 

12 l77 



178 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



fl- REAL- PICTURE FROM- 0N£ . 

OF 



have been the first person to think of printing. His old ser- 
vant says he went out walking in the country as the rich citi- 
zens were wont, and one day diverted himself by cutting 
letters on the bough of a beech tree — and, for fancy's sake, 
the thought struck him to take off an impression of it on 
paper with ink to please his grandchildren. So he inked the 
letters on the bough and pressed the paper on it, and there 
were the letters just as he had drawn them, only, of course, 
they were all backwards. So then Laurentius saw that, if he 
cut the letters backwards and inked them, the printing would 

come off the opposite way 
and be the right way 
round, as letters should 
be. Then he and his 
son-in-law began to try 
to print words and sen- 
tences. 

There is an old 

parchment in a library in 

Germany which has the 

Lord's Prayer printed 

on it, and people say 

this was one of the first things done by Laurentius. 

William Caxton, who was a tradesman of London, had 
to go to Holland on the business of his trade, and heard about 
printing. He thought such a wonderful thing ought to be 
used in England. So he learned how to print, and when he 
had printed a book about the history of Troy, he came to 
England and set up a printing press at Westminster. He 
put up a sign-board with a shield, and under it he said that 
printed matter could be had "good chepe" there. 

The king and the young nobles were only too pleased to 




WILLIAM- 

■CAXTONS 

•BOOKS 



«V6ow£v.y. 



THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER 



179 



buy his books as fast as he could print them. He printed 
Chaucer's poems and those of Lydgate and Gower, and many 
translations and other works. These, you must remember, 
were the earliest of English poets. We are sorry that 
boys and girls do not read them now. They are read in 
high schools and colleges. He complains in one of his 
books that he would like to please all men, but that some 
wanted him to print in French, and some in Latin, and some 
in English as it was spoken in Kent, and some in the English 
of other counties. 

I dare say you have often been told that the people in 
Dorsetshire speak quite a different English from the people of 
London, and the Yorkshire people again would hardly be 
understood if they went into Devonshire. And in Edward 
the Fourth's time this difference was even greater than it is 
now. "Any English," Caxton says, "that is spoken in one shire 
differs from another so much that in my days it happened that 
certain merchants from another part of the country were in a 
ship in Thames, and went on land to refresh themselves, and 
one of them came into a house and asked for meat, and 
especially he asked for eggs. The goodwife answered that 
she could speak no French, and the merchant was angry, 
because he also could speak no French, and would have had 
eggs, but she understood him not. Then one of the others 
said he would have eyren, and then the goodwife said she 
understood him well," 

You see, eggs were called "eggs" in one part of the coun- 
try, and "eyren" in another. 

Caxton was busy translating when he died. 

Among the nobles who encouraged Caxton, was the 
king's youngest brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. He 
was a cruel and ambitious man, and when King Edward died, 



i8o 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



Richard thought he would try to be king instead of letting 
his little nephew Edward the Fifth succeed to the crown. 

As soon as Edward the Fourth died his widow, Queen 
Elizabeth Woodville, took refuse at Westminster with her 
second son Richard, for she was afraid to trust herself among 
the enemies of her sons. The Young king, Edward the Fifth, 
was with his uncle Richard. The first thing Richard did was 

to kill as many of 
the nobles as he 
could among those 
who were favorable 
to the little prince. 
Archbishop Roth- 
erham went to see 
the queen at West- 
minster. As long 
as she was in sanc- 
tuary there, she and 
her son were safe 
and no one could 
touch them. The 
Archbishop found 
about the queen 
"much heaviness, 
rumble, haste and 
business ; carriage and conveyance of her stuff into sanctuary; 
chests, coffers, packs and bundles trussed all on men's backs ; 
no man unoccupied ; some lading, some going, some unload- 
ing, some going for more, some breaking down the wall to 
bring in the nearest way. The queen herself sat alone low on 
the ruins, all desolate and dismal." The Archbishop tried to 
comfort her, but she seems to have been beyond the reach of 




THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER 181 

comfort, for she knew that with the death of her husband all 
safety was taken away from her and her little ones. 

The Duke of Gloucester did not dare to say at once 
straight out that he meant to be king. He pretended to be 
very friendly to his little nephew, and rode before him 
bareheaded, saying to the people of London — "Behold your 
king." Two days after, he called a meeting of the little king's 
friends to settle the date of the coronation. So all the lords 
who wished him well came to the Tower and sat together 
waiting for the Duke of Gloucester. At last the duke came 
in very angry. 

"I have found," he said, "that there are wicked men 
who have tried to enchant me and do me harm. They wish 
to kill me by their cruel sorceries." 

Then he turned to Lord Hastings, who was a great 
friend to the little king, and said — "What should be done to 
such traitors ? ' ' 

"They deserve much punishment," said Lord Hastings, 
"if they have done so." 

"If? Dost thou answer me with 'ifs'?" roared out 
Gloucester. "By Saint Paul, I will not dine till your head 
is off." 

He struck his hand on the table, and a band of soldiers 
rushed into the room crying, "Treason, treason!" They 
seized on all the young king's friends and carried them off. 
But Richard ordered Lord Hastings to kneel on the floor 
and put his head on a log that had been brought in for fire- 
wood, and his head was chopped off then and there, before 
Richard went to dinner. 

Richard still pretended to be a friend to the young king, 
and said that he was only trying to protect the kingdom from 
traitors. He insisted that Elizabeth, the Queen, should give 



1 82 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

up her second son, because he said it would never do for the 
young king to be crowned and for his little brother not to be 
present when they put the crown on him. The queen, with 
many tears and kisses, consented to let her little son go. It 
was a sad pity that she did, for she never saw him again. 

People went on preparing for the great feast that always 
was held when a king was crowned. But, no doubt, there 
were many who knew that poor little Edward the Fifth would 
never wear the crown of England. 

Richard persuaded a lot of the nobles that Edward the 
Fifth was not fit to be king, and so they asked whether he 
would not be king instead. He pretended that he could not 
think of such a thing, and said, " My love of my brother's 
children is greater than my love of the crown." 

Then these nobles, who were all on his side, said he must 
be king for the good of England ; and he consented, pretend- 
ing all the time that he consented against his will. 

But he knew very well that as long as his brother's two 
sons remained alive, there were many brave hearts in England 
that would not submit tamely to see them wronged, and many 
brave arms that would strike a blow to see them righted. So 
he hired two wicked men to go and murder the little princes 
in the Tower. The little brothers were there alone. You can 
fancy how sadly the time passed for them. They had no 
amusements and no playfellows. They could only sit all day 
and hold each other's hands, and weep for their dead father, 
and long for the mother they were never to see again. 

And one night as they lay sleeping side by side, two 
wicked men crept in with knives in their hands to kill them 
as they slept. They were sleeping with their arms round 
each other, and their little faces lying close together, still wet, 



THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER 



183 



perhaps, with the tears they had shed before they went to sleep. 
Their prayer-book was lying on the bed beside them. 

When he saw them lying there so helpless and so young, 
one of the murderers had for a moment some better thoughts. 
Perhaps he thought of his own mother and of the time when 
he, too, was a little child, and said his prayers at night, and 
asked God to let the good angels take care of him. 

"God forgive me," he said," I can't kill these pretty babes." 

But the other one 
said — "If we don't do 
as we have been told to 
do, you know that we 
shall both be killed." 

The other man 
threw his knife away 
from him. " I can't do 
it," he said. 

"Be not so faint- 
hearted," said his com- 
panion. ' ' Let the knife 
lie there if you will. 
Turn your head away 
and cover them with 
the pillows. Then they will die quietly in their sleep, and 
we shall save our heads." 

So they did, and when the two little princes were quite 
dead, they took them as they lay in each other's arms and put 
their bodies in a chest ; and this chest was buried at the foot 
of some stairs in the Tower. 

Two hundred years afterwards some workmen were 
mending a staircase in the Tower, and they found the box 
with the bodies of the two poor little princes. Charles the 




'^^^^^y^MQcvvJ 



ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 



Second, who was king at that time, ordered them to be buried 
in Westminster Abbey, and there you can see their tomb to this 
day. Some people say that this story is not true, and that the 
two princes lived in the Tower for many years after their uncle 
was king. But when one remembers how cruelly he made 
away with their friends, it does not seem likely that he let 
them live. 

Richard, who had taken the throne as Richard the Third, 
was not allowed to en- 
joy his ill-gotten king- 
dom long, and he ap- 
pears to have been very 
unhappy, as he de- 
served to be. 

Sir Thomas More, 
writing of him, says : 
" He never had quiet in 
his mien, never thought 
himself sure. When 
he went abroad his eyes 
were rolled about, his 
hand was on his dagger. 
His countenance and 
manner like one ever ready to strike again ; he took ill-rest 
at night ; lay long waking and musing, sore wearied with care 
and watching ; troubled with frightful dreams; sometimes 
started up and ran about the chamber. So was his restless 
heart continually tossed and tumbled." 

There was another cousin of Richard's, a much better 
man, whose name was Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond. His 
mother was a lady of the family of Lancaster, which fought 
for the Red Rose ; and many people thought that he ought to 




THE LITTLE PRINCES ASLEEP. 



THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER 



185 



be king instead of the wicked Richard. So he sailed from 
France to Wales, where he soon had an army of Welshmen. 
Many English nobles and soldiers also joined him. Richard 
also gathered an army and fought his cousin Richmond at 
Bosworth Field. They say he lay awake all the night before 
the battle, thinking over all the wicked things he had done ; 
and the next morning he was tired and miserable, as people 
are who lie awake all night with only sad thoughts to keep 
them company. And at Bosworth field he was beaten, and 
died — as he deserved to die — miserably. The crown he had 
worn was found hanging" in the branches of a hawthorne, and 
was set on Henry's head. 

The battle of Bosworth was the end of the wars of 
the Roses. 








England in the Year, A.D., 1547. 



WHEN the great Henry the Eighth lay dying, his 
chief thought was to secure the safety of his 
young son, Edward. So he named sixteen per- 
sons, of whom the chief were the boy's uncles, 
Edward and Thomas Seymour, to carry out king Edward's 
intentions. 

The little king and his sister Elizabeth wept bitterly when 
they heard of their father's death. When they went to the 
Tower a day or two later, though Elizabeth was still very 
sad, Edward, who was only nine years old, clapped his hands 
with delight when the cannons were fired off to greet him as 
king. His Council received him with bent knees and kisses 
on his hands, and the words, "God save your Grace." The 
boy had been told what he must do. He took off his cap 
and said with pretty courtesy, "We heartily thank you, my 

187 



iSS 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



lords all, and hereafter, in all that you shall have to do with 
us for any suit or cause, ye shall be heartily welcome." 

Little Edward from his infancy had been crammed with 
teaching. When he was six years old, he was taken from his 
nurses, and two tutors were appointed, who worked the poor 
child so hard that at eight years old he was able to write 
Latin letters to his father. He was capable of keeping a diary 
for himself from the time of his accession — "stiff, dry and 

without character, as 

Edward vl^^ f rojvj 



draw- 
-INC* 

by 



could only be expected 
in a mere child of nine 
years old, but very 
curious." 

He was a beautiful 
boy, with blue eyes, 
light hair, and the fair 
skin of the royal line. 
And his nature seems 
to have been very 
docile and agreeable, 
though not without a 
certain sort of obstinacy 
such as could hardly fail to be developed in a little scholar- 
king who would have been the "prize boy" at a grammar 
school. He had a mighty conception of his own dignity. 
His uncle Thomas Seymour kept the king hard at his 
books, and his uncle Edward Seymour got the king to 
make him duke of Somerset. This duke was a very proud 
and greedy man. He built a splendid palace for himself in 
London, destroying for its sake the parish church of St. Mary 
in the Strand, and pulling down the houses of several bishops. 
The pleasure grounds were to have reached from the Strand 




EDWARD THE SIXTH 



to Saint Paul's Cathedral ; the chapel of the dead in Saint 
Paul's churchyard was pulled down to make room for the 
pleasure grounds, and the bones of the dead were scattered 
to the fields. 

Edward's 
stepmother, 
Katherine Parr, 
had charge of 
him and his sister 
Elizabeth, and 
also of his cousin, 
Lady Jane Grey, 
who was of the 
same age as the 
little king. Ed- 
ward was fond of 
his stepmother, 
who seems t o 
have been very 
kind in a rough 
sort of way. 

Edward had 
been brought up 
to be a Protest- 
ant, and in his 
reign a great 
many things that 

make the Church Service beautiful were declared to be unlaw- 
ful ; and the king commanded a new Prayer-book to be 
made, which was very much disliked by the people, and led to 
riots and fights in almost every county in England. There 
had not been such rebellion since the days of Wat Tyler. 




190 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



The people of England were as usual being oppressed 
and ill-treated by the rich, who had now found out a new 
means of injuring them. 

You must know that there had been, as far back as any 
one could remember, large pieces of grassland and woodland 
which did not belong to any particular owner, but to the com- 




THE KING ATTENDS A PLAY. 



mon people, and these were called commons or common 
lands. They were of the greatest value to the people, because 
any poor man who had a horse or a cow or a sheep could 
turn his beasts out to feed on the common lands, and his 
beasts got just as much food off these lands as they would 
have done if their owner had been able to fence in a little 
plot and call it his very own. 



EDWARD THE SIXTH 191 

But the rich lords were greedy to have this good pasture- 
land for themselves. So they used to enclose a field or a wood 
here and there with a fence, and then say it was their own, 
and that the common people had no right to it. 

There was a great rebellion against this theft — for it was 
nothing less — and it would have been well for the poor of 
England if that rebellion had been successful. 

In Norfolk, the leader of the people was a tanner named 
Robert Ket, who got together quite an army, and marched 
with them to a place near Norwich, There was a large oak 
tree in that place, on a spot called Mousehold Hill, which 
Ket named the Tree of Reformation ; and under its green 
boughs, he and his men sat in the midsummer weather, hold- 
ing courts of justice, and debating affairs of state. They were 
even impartial enough to allow some rather tiresome public 
speakers to get up into this Tree of Reformation, and point 
out their errors to them in long discourses, while they lay lis- 
tening (not always without some grumbling and growling) in 
the shade below. 

At last, one sunny July day, a herald appeared below 
the tree, and proclaimed Ket and all his men traitors, unless 
from that moment they dispersed and went home ; in which 
case they were to receive a pardon. But Ket and his men 
made light of the herald, and became stronger than ever, 
until the Earl of Warwick went after them with an army of 
7,500 men, and cut them all to pieces. A few were hanged, 
drawn, and quartered as traitors ; and their limbs were sent 
into various country places to be a terror to the people. Nine 
of them were hanged upon nine green branches of the Oak of 
Reformation ; and so, for the time, that tree may be said to 
have withered away. The sad thing is that the poor people 
were forced to submit to be robbed of the lands which had 



i92 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

belonged to them since the days when the Saxons came to 
England, that is to say, from the fifth and sixth centuries. 

The Church Catechism was written about this time. It 
would have been well if these idle and rich men had learned 
their Catechism and put it in practice, for you know the Cat- 
echism says that each man is not to covet or desire other 
men's goods, but to learn and labor truly to get his own liv- 
ing, and to do his duty in that state of life to which it shall 
please God to call him. And a man's living should be what 
he earns by his own work, not what he can steal from other 
people by enclosing their lands, or in any other way. 

The people in England were growing more and more 
clever in most things, and it was soon after this time that the 
greatest plays in the world were written. But in the reign of 
Edward the Sixth there were no plays such as you see now in 
theatres. The first kind of play was called a Miracle play. It 
was generally acted on a platform out of doors, and acted 
mostly at first by priests. They used to act some story 
taken out of the Old Testament, and the plays went on for 
many days together. 

Every nobleman of distinction kept his own company of 
players to amuse him and his friends. After the Miracles 
there came what were called Mysteries, and these represented 
something taken out of the New Testament. Then they 
invented a new kind of play called a Morality, in which per- 
sons, dressed to represent virtues and vices, came in and 
made long speeches, which must very often have been exceed- 
ingly tiresome. But they lasted a good while in England. 

Rough little plays, something like the harlequinades of 
the pantomimes, called Interludes, were introduced between 
the acts of the Miracle play or Morality, and these the people 



EDWARD THE SIXTH 



193 



must have liked very much, for they were full of funny 
scenes and speeches, and relieved the tedium of waiting. 
Masques were a very gorgeous sort of play, with not 
much acting, but a great deal of dressing and ornament, so 
that they were more of a show than a play. These were 




THE KING MAKING HIS WILL. 



given at court and in private houses, and the young king was 
very fond of all these entertainments. 

But all was not play. The Duke of Somerset, the Pro- 
tector of the Kingdom, as he was called, had offended some 
great lords, and they persuaded the king that he ought to be 
made to die. But the poor people loved him, and the laws 

that were made while he was Protector were meant for 
13 



194 



ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 



England's good. In spite of all that, his enemies got the 
young king to sign a warrant for his execution. 

On the morning that he was to be beheaded a great many- 
people had assembled to show their respect for him, and their 
grief at his death. Suddenly the sound of a horse's hoofs 
was heard, and the people hoped that the king had repented 
of his cruelty and sent a pardon to his uncle at the last 

moment, and they 

shouted for joy. But 

it was not so. The 

king had only sent a 

messenger to see that 

the execution was 

carried out. Then 

the people groaned 

and were sad. The duke begged they 

would be quiet and still, because he wished 

to make a brave end, and the si^ht of their 

sorrow for him almost unmanned him. 

"For," said he, "through your tumult 
you might trouble me, for though the spirit 
is willing the flesh is weak, and if you are 
quiet I shall be much more quiet." 

He then laid down his head on the 
fatal block, and had it struck off at a blow. Many of the 
bystanders rushed forward, and steeped their handkerchiefs 
in his blood, as a mark of their affection. 

It is not very pleasant to know that while his uncle lay 
in prison under sentence of death, the young king was being 
vastly entertained by plays and dances and sham fights ; but 
there is no doubt of it, for he kept a journal himself. It is 
pleasanter to know that not a single Roman Catholic was 




EDWARD THE SIXTH 195 

burnt in this reign for holding that religion ; though two 
wretched victims suffered for heresy or adverse view of faith. 

King Edward's health was growing worse and worse, 
and he was persuaded by one of the high nobles to make a 
will, leaving the crown not to either of his sisters, but to his 
cousin, Lady Jane Grey, and this foolish will cost many lives 
and much unhappiness. 

The best thing Edward did in his reign was the founding 
of Grammar Schools in many parts of the country. One 
school you all know. It is Christ's Hospital, called the Blue 
Coat School, which was established to feed and clothe four 
hundred poor children. And the boys who are taught there 
now still wear the dress which boys wore in Edward's reign. 

Edward the Sixth's father had taken away the lands of 
the monks and given them to his lords. Some of the monks 
had been wicked and selfish, but many of them had been kind 
and good, especially to the poor ; and while the monasteries 
or monks' houses flourished in England, poor beggars were 
always sure of help from the monks. But when the monks 
were turned out, they themselves had to become beggars, and 
the poor whom they had helped wandered about the country 
with no one to lend them a helping hand.. The numbers of 
people who had no work, and who had in former times been 
helped by the monks, were so great, that later on it was 
necessary to make a law for the relief of the poor. 

This was well meant at first, but led to a great deal of 
unhappiness, partly because the help given to the poor under 
the Poor Law was forced help, for which people had to be 
taxed, whereas the help that the old monks had given them 
had been from charity, the generous gift of love. It was to 
provide for the children of these poor people, who suffered so 



i 9 6 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

much from the loss of the monks' charity, that Edward the 
Sixth founded his schools. 

The chief thing that led Edward to make the will he did 
was that the Princess Mary, the nearest heir to the throne, 
had been brought up in the Roman Catholic faith, and the 
young king greatly feared that if she succeeded him the Prot- 
estant religion would be put down and the Catholic religion 
set up again. It was this trouble in the king's mind on which 
the Duke of Northumberland worked, and which induced him 
to make the will that chose Lady Jane Grey to wear the crown. 

It was completed none too soon ; for Edward was now 
sinking in a rapid decline ; and, by way of making him better, 
they handed him over to a woman doctor, who pretended to 
be able to cure it. He speedily got worse. On the 6th of 
July, in the year 1553, he died, very peaceably, praying God 
with his last breath, to protect the reformed religion. 

The king died in the sixteenth year of his age, and in the 
seventh of his reign. It is difficult to judge what the charac- 
ter of one so young might afterwards have become among so 
many bad, ambitious, quarreling nobles. But he was an ami- 
able boy, of very good abilities, and had nothing coarse or 
cruel or brutal in his disposition, which in the son of such a 
father is rather surprising. 

It is interesting here to recall a piece of history of a very 
common household article. It was during this reign or the 
preceding that pins were invented. But, as a matter of fact, 
they were introduced at a much earlier period. Before pins 
were invented ladies used to use little skewers of bone or 
wood to fasten their clothes. As for needles, they were tre- 
mendously valuable. One needle in a house was considered 
a precious possession, and was handed down from mother to 
daughter. There were not any made in England at that time. 




England in the Year, A.D., i^o. 



THE Duke of Northumberland persuaded Edward the 
Sixth to make a will saying who should reign after 
him. He would not name his sister Mary, because 
she was a Roman Catholic, and he had been brought 
up to be a Protestant ; and people said that his sister Eliza- 
beth, though she was a Protestant too, had no right to be 
queen. So he named his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, who was 
only sixteen years old and was married to Lord Guildford 
Dudley, the son of the Duke of Northumberland. She and 
her husband were both Protestants, and the duke hoped that 
the people would rather have a Protestant to be Queen than 
a Catholic like Mary ; and then he thought that, as Lady Jane 
was his daughter-in-law, he would rule the country through 
her. 

Lady Jane had been brought up very carefully. She was 
very learned. She knew Latin and Greek ; she could speak 
French and Italian as well as she could English ; she under- 
stood Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic, and was able to play, 
sing, and work embroidery. A very learned man, named 
Roger Ascharn, went to visit her parents in Broadgate, 

197 



1 9 8 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

Leicestershire. He found all the family hunting the deer in 
the park except this one young girl, Lady Jane, and she sat 
reading a Greek book. 

" I wonder that you like reading," said the visitor, 
"better than hunting the deer." 

And she answered, " All their sport in the park is but a 
shadow, I wis, of the pleasure that I find in my book. Alas, 
good folks, they never knew what good pleasure meant," 

"And how came you," asked Roger Ascham, "to this 
deep knowledge of pleasure, and what did chiefly allure you 
to it, seeing that not many men and very few women attain 
thereto ? " 

"She answered, "Sir, God hath blessed me with sharp 
and severe parents and a gentle schoolmaster. For when I 
am in the presence of either father or mother, whether I 
speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry or 
sad, be singing or dancing, or at anything else, I must do it, 
as it were, in such weight, measure and number, even as per- 
fectly as the world was made, or else I am so sharply taunted 
and cruelly threatened, yea, presently sometimes with pinches, 
nips and bobs, and so cruelly disordered, that I think myself 
in hell till the time come that I go to Mr. Aylmer, who 
teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with so fair allurements 
to learning, that I think all the time is as nothing while I am 
with him; and thus my book hath been so much more 
pleasure, and bringeth daily to me more pleasure, and more 
that, in respect of it, all other pleasures in very deed be but 
trifles and very troubles with me." 

She did not care for rich dresses, and would have been 
content to live a quiet country life with her pretty garden 
and her many books rather than to have been Queen of 
England. 



LADY JANE GREY 



199 



As soon as Edward the Sixth was dead, her father and 
mother and her husband's father and mother came to see her, 
and told her of her cousin's death, and explained to her that 
she must now be Queen, and they gave their reasons. Then 
her husband and his father, and some other lords who were 
present, fell on their knees and did homage to her as Queen. 
The poor child was so horrified at the news of her cousin's 
death, and by hearing 
that she was to be 
Queen of England, which 
was the last thing she 
wanted to be, that she 
screamed aloud and 
fainted away. When she 
came to herself again, 
she begged that they § 
would not try to make 
her Queen, but would 
leave her to be happy in 
her own way. " I will 
not be Queen," she said, 
but her father and mother 
insisted that she must be, 
and threatened her with 
all sorts of punishments if she refused, and her husband 
and his parents persuaded her. " Don't hold back," they 
said, "and imperil the Protestant cause by faint-hearted- 
ness." 

She yielded at last, and, as she afterwards wrote to 
Mary — " I turned myself to God, humbly praying and entreat- 
ing Him that, if this which was given me were rightly and 
lawfully mine, His Divine Majesty would give me such grace 




2oo ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

and spirit that I might govern to His glory and the welfare 
of this realm." 

When she had recovered from the shock, and had been 
arrayed for the occasion, Jane was taken by water to the 
Tower. She entered it in state, her train being borne by her 
mother, and at her entrance the Lord Treasurer presented 
her with the crown, while her relations saluted her on their 
knees. 

The same evening heralds proclaimed round London 
that Edward was dead and that Jane was Queen, but the 
Londoners were not pleased, for they wanted Mary or Eliza- 
both to be Queen. The people of London looked on Lady 
Jane Grey as an upstart ; and though Northumberland and 
Lady Jane's father got together an army, it was in vain, for 
Queen Mary was proclaimed from Paul's Cross amid shouts 
of joy from all the people. There were bonfires, illumina- 
tions, and shoutings, and sounds of joy, whereas, when Lady 
Jane was proclaimed Queen, there had only been a miserable 
silence. The next day, just twenty days after they had made 
her Queen, Jane was taken back to her own house. Her 
whole time during her brief reign had been made miserable 
by her husband and his mother, because though she would 
make him a duke, she had made up her mind that she would 
not let him call himself King. He scolded and tormented 
her, and then sulked and would not speak to her, so that she 
was very miserable and tired of playing at being Queen, for 
it was only a play, and she was very glad to go back to being 
only Lady Jane Grey. 

The Duke of Northumberland saw that his plans had 
failed ; so he tried to save himself by pretending to be very 
glad that Queen Mary was proclaimed Queen. " The Queen 
is merciful," he said, "she will pardon me." 



LADY JANE GREY 



"Don't think of it," answered a gentleman who was 
with him. "Whoever else escapes, you will not." 

The Princess Mary was at this time far from London. 
The crafty Duke of Northumberland had at first tried to 
keep the death of young King Edward a secret until he could 
get the two princesses into his power. But the Earl of 
Arundel, who knew of it, and was a friend of Princess Mary, 
secretly sent her word that her brother was dead and that 
Lady Jane Grey 
had been named 
as queen in his 
will. Mary was 
then riding to 
London to see 
her sick brother, 
but on hearing of 
his death and her 
own danger, she 
turned the head 
of her horse and 
rode at full speed 
into the county 
of Norfolk 

Here some lady jane and her tutor. 

powerful lords declared that Mary was the true queen and 
raised troops to support her cause. They had her proclaimed 
queen at Norwich, and gathered around her at the Castle of 
Framlingham, which belonged to the Duke of Norfolk. For 
she was not considered so safe as yet, but that it was best to 
keep her in a castle on the sea coast, from whence she might 
be sent abroad if necessary. 

When news of this came to London, the council of the 




202 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

kingdom, which felt that it must obey the king's will, wished to 
send Lady Jane's father, the Duke of Suffolk, as the general 
of the army, against this force ; but as she implored that her 
father might remain with her, and he was known to be but a 
weak man, they told the Duke of Northumberland that he 
must take the command himself. He was not very ready to 
do so, as he mistrusted the council much ; but there was no 
help for it, and he set forth with a heavy heart, observing to 
a lord who rode beside him through Shoreditch at the head 
of the troops, that, although the people pressed in great num- 
bers to look at them, they were terribly silent. 

And his fears for himself turned out to be well founded. 
While he was waiting at Cambridge for further help from the 
council, they took it into their heads to turn their backs 
on Lady Jane's cause, and to take up the Princess Mary's. 
This was chiefly owing to the Earl of Arundel, who said to 
the lord mayor and aldermen, in an interview with them, that, 
as for himself, he did not perceive the reformed religion to 
be in much danger — which Lord Pembroke backed by flour- 
ishing his sword as another kind of persuasion. The lord 
mayor and aldermen thus talked to, changed their minds very 
quickly, and said there could be no doubt that the Princess 
Mary ought to be queen. So she was proclaimed, as we have 
said, at the Cross by St. Paul's ; and barrels of wine were 
given to the people, and they got very drunk, and danced 
round blazing bonfires, shouting and huzzahing with great joy. 

It was now plain that Lady Jane's sorry dream of royalty 
was at an end. She very willingly gave up the crown, say- 
ing that she had accepted only in obedience to her father 
and ^mother, and went gladly enough back to her pleasant 
house by the river, and to her books, which she loved far 
more than she did power. 



LADY JANE GREY 



203 



Mary, at this time, was coming on towards London. At 
Wanstead, in Essex, she was joined by her half-sister, the 
Princess Elizabeth. They passed through the streets of Lon- 
don to the Tower, and there the new queen met some emi- 
nent prisoners then confined in it, kissed them and gave them 
their liberty. 

The Duke of Northumberland had been taken prisoner, 
and, together with his son, Lady Jane's husband, and five others, 
was quickly brought 
before the Council. He 
asked that Council, in 
his defence, whether it 
was treason to obey or- 
ders that had been is- 
sued under the great 
seal ; and, if it were, 
whether they, who had 
obeyed them too, ought 
to be his judges ? But 
they made light of these 
points ; and, being re- 
solved to have him out 
of the way, soon sen- 
tenced, him to death. 

He had risen into power upon the death of another man, 
and made but a poor show when he himself lay low. He 
entreated Bishop Gardiner whom Queen Mary, having ascen- 
ded the throne, hastened to reward by the office of chancellor 
of England, to let him live, if it were only in a mouse's hole ; 
and, when he ascended the scaffold to be beheaded on Tower 
Hill, addressed the people in a miserable way, saying that he 
had been incited by others, and exhorting them to return to 




204 



ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 



the Catholic religion, which he told them was his faith. There' 
seems reason to suppose that he expected a pardon even then, 
in return for his confession ; but it matters little whether he 
did or not. His head was struck off. 

As for Lady Jane, she was not allowed to stay long in 
her pleasant room among her books, but was taken from 
there and shut up in the Tower of London, along with her 
husband. They were permitted to walk about in the gardens 
of the Tower, but they were kept close prisoners. We may 
be sure that Lord Dudley, her husband, no longer tormented 
her with his petty desire to be called king. He could not now 
even bear the title of duke, which she had promised him. 
There were those who wished Queen Mary to have her girlish 
rival's head cut off, as had long been the fashion in such 
cases, but the new queen would not consent. 

" I am not afraid of Jane Grey," she said. " She has no 
friends powerful enough to do me any harm, and why should 
I take the life of that insignificant girl, who will never be any- 
thing but a mere book worm." 

Soon after Mary was crowned Queen of England at 
Westminster. Her sister Elizabeth, who would follow her 
on the throne if she should die without children, carried the 
crown of England from the Abbey Church to Westminster 
Hall on a cushion. She complained to the French ambassador 
that the crown was very heavy. 

"You will not find it so," he said, " when you are queen 
and you have to wear it on your own head." 

Queen Mary wanted to marry a Spanish prince, he who 
afterwards became the cruel Philip II, but the English people 
hated the Spaniards, partly on account of their cruelty, partly 
because they were Roman Catholics ; and a gentleman, named 
Sir Thomas Wyatt, with several other nobles, made a plot to 



LADY JANE GREY 



205 



take the crown from Mary and make Princess Elizabeth queen. 
Fifteen hundred armed men assembled around Wyatt at 
Rochester, where he took possession of the castle, and as 
many as 5000 were gathered there as soon as Mary's army 
advanced against him. 

When Mary's troops had come up to the castle, one of 
her captains turned round to the soldiers and said: "Will 
you fight and shed the blood of these brave Englishmen who 
want to save you 
from the domina- 
tion of Spain?" 
And they called 
out, "Wyatt, 
Wyatt!"' When 
Sir Thomas Wy- 
att appeared they 
cheered him and 
went over to his 
side. Then Sir 
Thomas Wyatt 
and his men ad- 
vanced toward 
London, and 
would have sue- playing at queen. 

ceeded in driving Mary away if she had not bravely gone 
down to the city, and declared that, if she were to lose her 
crown, she would die with the brave men who were fighting 
for her. This inspired her men with courage. They fought 
Sir Thomas Wyatt's party and defeated them. 

Lady Jane Grey's relations had taken advantage of the 
disturbances to proclaim publicly that she ought to be queen ; 
and Queen Mary was so angry at this, that, although Lady 




2o6 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

Grey knew nothing about it, Mary did one of the most cruel 
acts of her cruel reign. She sentenced poor Lady Jane and 
her husband to be executed. 

Lady Jane received the news of her sentence very bravely 
and quietly. She wrote a letter to her father on the blank 
leaves of a Greek Testament, and another letter to her sister 
Catherine. This was written in Greek, to prevent its being 
read by the guards who surrounded her. They offered to 
let her see her husband again for the last time before her 
head and his were taken off; but she refused, saying that 
she had need of all her courage, and she might break down 
if she saw him. She seems to have been fond of him, though 
he was so disagreeable to her when she would not agree to 
let him be called king. 

Early in the morning, poor Lady Jane Grey stood by the 
iron-barred window of her prison and saw her poor young 
husband led out to be beheaded. About an hour later, as 
she still stood by the window in prayer, she saw a common 
cart come through the gate, and in it her husband's body, all 
covered with blood. She wrote in a little book in Greek — 
" If his slain body so comes before man, his blessed soul 
shall vindicate me before God." And she wrote in Latin — 
" Man's justice destroyed his body; God's mercy preserves 
his soul." And in English she wrote — " If my fault deserved 
punishment, my youth and imprudence were worthy of excuse." 
The Governor of the Tower asked her for a keepsake when 
he came to lead her to the scaffold, and she gave him this 
little book. 

She came up to the scaffold with a firm step and a quiet 
face, and addressed the bystanders in a steady voice. They 
were not numerous ; for she was too young, too innocent and 
fair, to be murdered before the people on Tower Hill, as her 



LADY JANE GREY 



207 



husband had just been ; so, the place of her execution was 
within the Tower itself. She said she had done an unlawful 
act in taking what was Queen Mary's right ; but that she had 
done so with no bad intent, and that she died a humble Chris- 
tian. She begged the executioner to despatch her quickly, 
•and she asked him : "Will you take my head off before I lay 
me down?" He answered: "No, Madam," and then she 
was very quiet while they bandaged her eyes. Being blinded, 
and unable to see the block on which she was to lay her 
young head, she was seen to feel about for it with her hands, 
and was heard to say, confused: "Oh, what shall I do! 
Where is it?" Then they guided her to the right place, and 
the executioner struck off her head. You know too well, 
now, what dreadful deeds the executioner did in England, 
through many, many years, and how his axe descended on 
the hateful block through the necks of some of the bravest, 
wisest and best in the land. But it never struck so cruel and 
vile a blow as this. 





208 




England in the Year, A.D., i^o. 



HAVE you ever read the story of Henry the Eighth of 
England, that huge, blustering beast of a king, who 
married six times. Two of his wives he got rid of 
by divorcing, and two by the easy way of cutting 
off their heads ? One of them died soon after he married 
her, and the last one was lucky enough to outlive him. 
Thus the whole six are accounted for. 

It was Henry the Eighth who established the Protestant 
Church in England, but this was- not that he cared anything 
about religion, but because the Pope refused to give him a 
divorce from, his first wife, Catharine of Aragon. He founded 
a church of his own, that he might get a bishop that would 
do what he wanted. 

The reason Henry wanted to divorce his wife Catharine 
was because he had fallen desperately in love with a beautiful 
lady of the court, named Anne Boleyn. His love for her 
soon wore out, however, or it was driven out of his heart by 
jealousy, and three years after their marriage he had her head 



i 4 



209 



2io ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

cut off on the headman's fatal block. But though poor Anne 
Boleyn was gone, she left a fine legacy to England, in the 
shape of a beautiful little princess, who was to become the 
great Queen Elizabeth, one of the most famous of all the 
monarchs who have been seated on England's throne. 

Henry the Eighth left three children, all of whom wore 
the crown of England. One of them was the son of his third 
wife, Jane Seymour, who died when her baby boy was born. 
He became the boy king Edward VI, the story of his life we 
have given. Another was the daughter of Catharine of Ara- 
gon, Henry's Spanish wife. She came to the throne as Queen 
Mary — Bloody Mary she is often called, for she put many 
of her subjects to death by sword or fire. One of the first of 
these was hapless Lady Jane Grey, whose unhappy tale you 
have just read. 

Mary was a Catholic, like her mother, and tried to do 
away with the Protestant faith which her father had brought 
in, by burning to death those who taught it. It is said that 
three hundred people were burned alive during her short 
reign of a little over five years, sixty of them being women 
and forty of them children. It is hard to believe that any 
woman could have done such dreadful work, and think that 
she was in this way helping the cause of Christ. 

The third of Henry's children to come to the throne was 
Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, a Protestant like her 
mother, and who firmly established the Protestant faith in 
England during her long reign. For while Edward and Mary 
together reigned less than twelve years, Elizabeth was on the 
throne for forty-five years. But, great queen as she was, there 
were many unhappy moments in her youthful life, and she 
had much reason to fear that she would suffer the fate of her 
cousin Lady Jane Grey. 



MARY AND ELIZABETH 



There was a gallant young nobleman named Courtenay, 
of whom Mary seemed very fond, and whom she made Earl 
of Devonshire. But just when it was thought she would 
marry him, she changed her mind and chose the Catholic 
prince, Philip of Spain. This created much bitter feeling 
among the people, and a plot was formed to marry Courte- 
nay to the Princess Elizabeth, and there were tumults all over 
the country against the queen. In the bold old county of 
Kent it led to a rebellion, of which Sir Thomas Wyatt, a man 
of great daring, was the leader. We have told in the last 
chapter all that need be said about this rebellion. 

Though Lady Jane 
Grey and her husband 
were killed because of 
the Wyatt rebellion, 
the hope of that rebel- 
lion was to put the 
Princess Elizabeth on 
the throne and to get 
rid of Queen Mary. 
When Mary was made 
queen she took her sister to live with her ; but she treated 
the princess very rudely and pretended to think she was not 
a princess at all, making her come into the room after coun- 
tesses and duchesses, as if she were a person of inferior rank, 
whereas she ought really to have come in next after the Queen 
herself. 

Elizabeth was a very unhappy Princess at court, and 
begged her sister, the queen, to let her go away and live in 
her country house, and at last she was allowed to go and live 
at Ashbridge, in Buckinghamshire. 

Then came the Wyatt rebellion, and in the midst of it 




ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 



obliged to come to London. 



Queen Mary. sent for her sister. Princess Elizabeth said she 
was ill, and would not let anyone into her house, and the 
people who were in attendance on her said they would fight 
to the death rather than she should be taken back to Mary's 
Court, because they feared what might happen to their Prin- 
cess. At last, after Wyatt had been taken, Elizabeth was 

She was really weak and ill 
when she set out, 
but they traveled very 
slowly, and she got 
better on the way. 

She entered 
London, dressed in 
white, looking very 
pale, grave and reso- 
lute. A hundred 
gentlemen in velvet 
marched before her, 
and a hundred be- 
hind, dressed in black 
velvet. The roads 
were lined with peo- 
ple who wept and 
cried because they 
thought Princess Elizabeth was going to be killed. She 
was not allowed to see the Queen, but she sent a ring to her 
which the Queen had given her to send if ever there should 
be any quarrel between them. 

She was kept at Westminster Palace with two gentlemen, 
six ladies, and four servants of her own, and she was not 
allowed to go out or receive visitors unless she had guards 
with her. 




'THtTRAITORS'GfflE 




ALFRED THE GREAT LEARN'NG TO READ. 

ed to read to him out of a great book, with gold and precious ! 
autiful songs and poetry. He became a good and great King. 




THE CORONATION OF HENRY III. 



This young King was only nine J 
Chair, which is seen in the picture, 
land for hund-eds of years. 1 1 has 



ter. The Coronation 
of the Kings of Eng- 



MARY AND ELIZABETH 213 

At last the Queen decided to put her in the Tower. 
The Earl of Sussex went to the Princess at Westminster, and 
told her to have her barge got ready at once, so that the tide 
might carry them through London to the Tower. 

It seems that Wyatt had written her several letters, which 
she said she had never received, and for this reason they 
thought she had something to do with his rebellion. She 
now insisted on waiting to write a letter to her sister, and by 
the time she had finished it, the tide had turned, so she could 
not go to the Tower that day, The Earl of Sussex took the 
letter to Mary, who was very angry on hearing that Elizabeth 
had not yet been shut up in the Tower. 

" I wish my father were alive," she said, "you would not 
dare to disobey him." 

The next day Elizabeth was taken to the Tower by the 
river. Her guards hoped that all the London people would 
be at dinner, and they hurried her so that they were too early 
for the tide, and the boatmen were afraid to go under the 
bridge. But the nobles who were with her insisted, and so 
the boatmen had to do their best, and, though it was very 
dangerous, it was safely done. 

The barge was brought up to a low, wide arch, looking 
over the river. It is called the Traitors' Gate. So Elizabeth 
said : 

"This is for traitors, and I am none," and refused to 
land there. 

"Madam, you may not choose," said one of the lords, 
offerino" her his cloak, for it was then raining, but " she 
dashed it from her with a good dash," and said, as she 
stepped out of the barge on to the stone step, " Here lands 
as true a subject as ever trod. Before Thee, O God, I speak 
it, having no other friend but Thee alone." 



2I 4 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



She came up the steps where the warders were drawn 
up, and some of them, as she passed, knelt and prayed aloud 
for her safety. When she reached the Tower prison itself, 
she sat down on a stone and refused to go in. Then they 
said : " Madam, you had best come in, for it is not whole- 
some to sit in 
the rain." 

" Better sit 
here than in a 
worse place, "she 
cried, "God 
knoweth whither 
you will bring 
me." 

One of her 
gentlemen burst 
into crying. 
\ "You do ill. 

You ought to be 
my support and 
comforter," she 
said. 

At last she 
let them take her 
into her rooms, 
and the door 
was made fast 
on her with locks and bolts. Then she gathered her ser- 
vants together, called for her books, and read the prayers. 
She was not very strong when she came to the Tower, and 
being shut up in close little rooms, she began to get paler and 
thinner, and though many of the lords in the kingdom were 




MARY AND ELIZABETH 215 

deeply considering whether they should cut off her head or 
not, they did not wish her health to suffer while they were 
making up their minds, so they gave her leave to walk in the 
gardens every day for her health. 

The son of one of the warders, a little boy named Martin, 
who was only five years old, was very much pleased with the 
Princess's looks, and he used to run up to her with bunches 
of flowers, which she received gently and quietly. She liked 
to talk with him and to listen to his childish chatter. One 
day, a little girl, named Susannah, ran up to the Princess and 
gave her a bunch of little keys. " Now," she said, "you can 
open the garden gate and walk about where you will," 

This was only the child's fancy, for the keys of the Tower 
were very big keys, and none of these little ones could possi- 
bly have unlocked any of its doors. But the act made some 
persons think that perhaps little Martin's nosegays were used 
to hide letters in from the people who wanted Elizabeth to be 
queen. So the child was sent for by the Council, and the 
lords asked him dozens of questions, but they could get 
nothing against the princess or the people out of him, so they 
contented themselves with forbidding him to bring his nose- 
gays any longer. 

As soon as he got back to the Tower, he ran to the 
princess's room and called through the keyhole: "Mistress, 
I can bring you no more flowers now," and you can guess 
how sad the Princess Elizabeth was to hear that she was 
to have no more flowers from her little friend. 

Sir Henry Bedingfield was appointed Governor of the 
Tower soon after. He arrived with a guard of one hundred 
men in blue coats ; and Elizabeth thought her head was really 
going to be cut off this time ; and, no doubt, she spent some 
very sad moments. 



!I6 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



But instead he had come to take her away to a coun- 
try home at the mansion of Woodstock, where she was kept 
as a prisoner, being allowed to walk out only with guards, to 
prevent her running away. But of course, she had much 
more freedom than at the Tower. Yet she was very miser- 
able at Woodstock. Tennyson pictures her sad and lonely 
in her imprisonment, and as she sits grieving, she hears a 
milkmaid singing outside : 




"Shame upon you, Robin, 

Shame upon you now ! 
Kiss me, would you ? with my hands 

Milking the cow ? 
Daisies grow again, 

Kingcups blow again, 
And you came and kissed me milking 
the cow ! " 



ELIZABETH READING PRAYERS. 



Princess Elizabeth sighed as she heard the song and said 



; I would I were a milkmaid, 

To sing, love, marry, churn, brew, bake, and die, 
Then have my simple headstone by the church, 
And all things lived and ended honestly." 



MARY AND ELIZABETH 217 

Elizaheth was kept a captive at Woodstock for some 
time, and was then removed to Hatfield House, where she 
lived a long time. At last the queen died, but first, by 
the advice of her husband, she named Elizabeth to succeed 
her. The Princess was at Hatfield House when the news of 
the queen's fatal illness was brought her. She was not 
allowed to see her sister, though she was dying; and when 
they brought the news of the queen's death and told her that 
she now was herself queen, she refused to believe them until 
they brought her the wedding ring, which had never before left 
Mary's finger. When the councillors arrived and paid their 
homage 'to Elizabeth as queen, she sank on her knees and 
said in Latin, "It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous 
in our eyes." 

No time was lost in setting out for London, and when 
Elizabeth entered the city she was attended by a splendid com- 
pany of lords and ladies ; and she rode at their head, among 
the people, who greeted her with cries of love and delight. 

On the day that Queen Elizabeth was crowned and was 
driven through the streets of London, the people threw flow- 
ers at her carriage and cheered and shouted for joy. One 
poor woman who had no flowers to give, came up to the 
coach with a bunch of rosemary, and the queen accepted it 
with a gentle smile, and held it in her hand the whole day. 

Altogether, the people had greater reason for rejoicing 
than they usually had when there were processions in the 
streets ; and they were happy with some reason. All kinds 
of shows and images were set up ; Gog and Magog were 
hoisted to the top of Temple Bar ; and (which was more 
to the purpose) the corporation dutifully presented the young 
queen with the sum of a thousand marks in gold — so heavy a 
present, that she was obliged to take it into her carriage with 



2i3 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

both hands. The coronation was a great success ; and on 
the next day one of the courtiers presented a petition to the 
new queen, praying that, as it was the custom to release some 
prisoner on such occasions, she would have the goodness to 
release the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, 
and also the Apostle St. Paul, who had been for some time 
shut up in a strange language, so that the people could not 
get at them. 

To this the queen replied that it would be better first to 
inquire of themselves whether they desired to be released or 
not; and, as a means of finding out, a great public discussion 
— a sort of religious tournament — was appointed to take place 
between certain champions of the two religions, in Westmin- 
ster Abbey. You may suppose that it was soon made pretty 
clear to common sense, that for people to benefit by what they 
repeat or read it is rather necessary they should, understand 
something about it. In consequence a church service in plain 
English was ordered. But while the Protestant religion was 
firmly established, the Catholics were not so harshly dealt 
with as the Protestants had been under Queen Mary, the min- 
isters of the new queen showing a more wise and merciful spirit. 

England was tired of the cruelties of Mary, but the new 
queen was far too brave and good a woman, and far too 
clever and strong in her own opinions, to be willing to burn 
other people because they had strong opinions too. So the 
people soon knew that they would be allowed to do what they 
thought right in matters of religion, and need no longer fear 
being burnt alive for their faith, as in Mary's time. 

The reign of Elizabeth was long and prosperous, and 
England rose then to great glory in arms and art and song. 
William Shakespeare lived and wrote in her reign. Then, 
too, lived the noble poets Spenser, Marlowe, Ben Jonson, 



MARY AND ELIZABETH 219 

Drayton (who wrote the great song about Agincourt), Sir 
Walter Raleigh, Sir Philip Sidney, and many other great 
men. For the queen was clever, and loved art and poetry 
as well as bravery. She rewarded a clever saying with her 
brightest smile, and showered her favors oil men of letters. 

Queen Elizabeth was very fond of show and sport, and 
fine processions, and grand entertainments. She liked to 
make journeys in great state through the country, that the 
loyal people might see and admire the splendor of their queen, 
and the nobles might have the opportunity of entertaining 
her at their castles. The people, no doubt, enjoyed it very 
much, gathering in great companies, and shouting, and clap- 
ping and hurrahing gladly and wildly when the queen and 
her gaily-dressed courtiers went by. But I fancy the nobles 
did not enjoy it so much, for the queen brought so many 
people with her in these royal pilgrimages that her hosts were 
nearly eaten out of house and home. She expected to receive 
rich presents, too, and got them, as her entertainers felt 
obliged to give them, so that many of them were almost ruined. 

These journeys she called Progresses. The most famous 
of them was that made to Lord Leicester's castle of Kenil- 
worth. Leicester was one of. the queen's lovers, of whom 
she had many, but she seemed to like him more than any of 
the others, though he did many foolish and some wicked 
things. He was rich enough to feed her host of followers 
without feeling it, and to show his hospitality he kept the 
hands of the clock always at twelve, that it might seem to be 
always dinner time. And the fine shows and plays and costly 
entertainments that he provided kept the castle in a continual 
bustle and would have beggared any one less rich than he was. 

If any of us had seen Queen Elizabeth, I am sure we 
would not have thought her a handsome woman. She was 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



anything but the beautiful creature her courtiers made her out 
to be in their foolish compliments. She was little, and had 
red hair, and a long and rather hooked nose, but her eyes 
were bright and could be as fierce as those of a lion when 
she was out of temper, and she could look very dignified. 

One of her great faults was her van- 
ity. She liked to be praised and courted 
) and to have lovers, though she would 
j never marry any of them. She allowed 
t foreign princes to send her their portraits, 
I and also rings and jewels, and sometimes 
I to come and see her, but she had no fancy 
for taking any of them for a husband. As 
i to the gentlemen at her own court, she 
,; liked them to make the most absurd and 
ridiculous compliments to her, calling her 
their sun and goddess, and her hair golden 
beams of the morning, and the like ; and 
. the older she grew, the more she enjoyed 
i these fine but ridiculous compliments. 
Her -dress was a huge hoop; a tall ruff 
covered with lace, and jewels in the ut- 
most profusion, all as splendid as it could 
■| be made, and in wonderful variety. She 
is said to have had three hundred gowns 
and thirty wigs. Lord Burleigh said of 
her that she was sometimes more than 
a man, and sometimes less than a woman. And in one way 
she was, for she did not like her ladies to wear handsome 
dresses and thus to compete with her in display. 

One of the people who had wanted to marry Elizabeth 
was her brother-in-law, Philip II, of Spain, who had been 




SOLDIER OF ELIZABETH. 




THE KING AND QUEEN RETURNING FROM WESTMINSTER ABBEY AFTER 
THE CORONATION CEREMONY 

They rode to Buckingham Palace in the state coach, wearing their golden crowns for the first time 

in public. Large concourses of people assembled to witness the spectacle of their monarch, riding 

through the streets of their capital, crowned and in royal robes. 




THE DEPARTURE OF THE " OPHIR " FROM PORTSMOUTH 
With the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall starting on their tour around the Empire. March 1G. laoi. 



MARY AND ELIZABETH 221 

Queen Mary's husband. Very likely what he would have 
liked to do would have been to set up the Catholic religion 
in England and punish the Protestants, as Mary had done, 
and as he did himself in the Netherlands. As he could not 
get control of England in this way, he tried to do so in another 
way, fitting out a great expedition that was intended to con- 
quer the island kingdom and make him its lord and master. 

Never had such a mighty expedition sailed from the 
shores of Spain. It consisted of one hundred and thirty 
ships, some of them very great and formidable ; nineteen 
thousand soldiers ; eight thousand sailors ; two thousand 
slaves and between two and three thousand cannon. It took 
several years to get ready so great a force, and England made 
ready to meet it. All the men between sixteen and sixty 
years old were trained and drilled ; the national fleet of ships 
(in number only thirty-four at first) was enlarged by public 
contributions, and by private ships, fitted out by noblemen ; 
the City of London, of its own accord, furnished double the 
number of ships and men that it was required to provide ; 
and, if ever the national spirit was up in England, it was up 
all through the country to resist the Spaniards. 

Some of the queen's advisers were for seizing the prin- 
cipal English Catholics and putting them to death ; but the 
queen — who, to her honor, used to say she would never 
believe any ill of her subjects which a parent would not believe 
of her children — rejected the advice, and only confined in the 
fens in Lincolnshire a few of those who were the most sus- 
pected. The great body of Catholics deserved this confidence ; 
for they behaved most loyally, nobly and bravely. 

So, with all England firing up like one strong, angry 
man, and with both sides of the Thames fortified, and with 
the soldiers under arms, and with the sailors in their ships, 



222 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

the country waited for the coming of the proud Spanish fleet, 
which was called The Invincible Armada. The queen her- 
self, riding in armor on a white horse, and the Earl of Essex 
and the Earl of Leicester holding her bridle-rein, made a 
brave speech to the troops at Tilbury Fort, opposite Gravesend, 
which was received with such enthusiasm as is seldom known. 

Then came the Spanish Armada into the English Chan- 
nel, saili lg along in the form of a half-moon, of such great size 
that it was seven miles broad. But the English were quickly 
upon it; and woe then to all the Spanish ships that dropped 
a little out of the half-moon, for the English took them 
instantly ! And it soon appeared that the Armada was any- 
thing but invincible ; for on a summer night, bold Admiral 
Drake sent eight blazing fire-ships right in the midst of it. 
In terrible consternation the Spaniards tried to get out to sea, 
and so became dispersed, while the English pursued them at 
a great advantage. A storm came on and drove the Span- 
iards among rocks and shoals, and the end of the invincible 
fleet was, that it lost thirty great ships and ten or twenty 
thousand men, and then fled home again in defeat and dis- 
grace. Being afraid to go by the English Channel, it sailed 
all round Scotland and Ireland. Some of the ships were 
cast away on the latter coast in bad weather, and the 
Irish plundered those vessels and killed their crews. So 
ended this great attempt to invade and conquer England. 

This was the greatest and most glorious warlike event in 
Elizabeth's reign. She lived fifteen years afterwards, and 
died with the reputation of being a great queen, who had 
gloriously upheld the honor of England. And the reign of 
Elizabeth is still looked on as being one of the noblest in Eng- 
lish history, but this is more for the great men who adorned 
it than for the queen herself. 



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The Unhappy Mary Queen of Scots. 



IN the year 1542 there was born in the royal palace at 
Edinburgh, the capital of the kingdom of Scotland, 
a beautiful little princess, the daughter of James V, 
monarch of that kingdom. She was a direct descendant 
from Margaret, the daughter of King Henry the Seventh of 
England, and was the next heir to the English throne if 
Queen Elizabeth should die without children. This claim to 
the throne of England was to bring the girl child many 
unhappy days in her later life, and in the end to lead to her 
cruel death. Far better had it been for her if her cousin Eliza- 
beth had married and left an heir to the throne. 

Mary's father died a few days after she was born, and 
when she was only nine months old she was crowned Queen 
of Scotland by Cardinal Beatoun, who made himself regent 
of the kingdom. Has ever any other girl baby been made a 
queen, and at so tender an age? It would have been better 

223 



224 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

for her, as it would have been for Lady Jane Grey, if she had 
not been of royal blood, or never been raised to a throne. 

As she grew to girlhood the kings around her entered into 
a contest for her hand. Henry the Eighth even sent an army 
to Scotland to obtain her as a wife for his son Edward, and 
thus bring the two countries under one crown. But in 1548, 
when little Mary was six years old, she was betrothed to 
Prince Francis, the heir to the throne of France, and she was 
sent to Paris to complete her education. Her mother was a 
French woman, Mary of Guise, and the child queen was 
brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. 

Educated at the polite and lively court of Paris, little 
Queen Mary showed herself very quick and bright, and soon 
excelled in various accomplishments. At an early age she 
could talk French and Italian, and was a very good Latin 
scholar. When she was only fourteen she composed and 
read before the French king a Latin oration, for which she 
was highly complimented. Perhaps the compliments were as 
much to the queen as to the oration. 

In fact, no one could help complimenting little Mary for 
herself. Such a rare and beautiful creature had not often 
been seen even at the brilliant court of France. She was a 
perfect vision of girlish grace and beauty, and was so admired 
for the graces of her mind and the fascinating charm of her 
manner that she became the general favorite and the chief 
ornament of the French court. No one who speaks of Mary 
of Scotland fails to grow eloquent over her great beauty of 
face and form, fascination of mind and manner, and wonder- 
ful powers of pleasing. 

In 1558, when she was sixteen years of age, Mary was 
married to Francis, the Dauphin of France, and a lovely pair 
they made, for Francis was a handsome and engaging youth, 



THE BABY QUEEN 



225 



and they were very happy together. In the next year Henry 
II, King of France, died, and Francis became king in his 
place. Thus Mary was now a double queen, of Scotland and 
France. And the young couple also took the title of King 
and Queen of England, for the English Queen Mary was 
now dead, and the Catholic party held that Elizabeth was not 
the true heir to the throne, for they said that her mother, 
Anne Boleyn, had ^— .. 

not been the legal 
wife of Henry 
Eighth, who had 
married her with- 
out permission of 
the Pope, and while 
his first wife was 
still living. All 
this was to make 
trouble in the com- 
ing years. 

It happened 
soon that the young 
French king died, 
leaving Mary a 
young widow. She 
was then invited by 
her Scottish subjects to return home and reign over them ; 
and, as she was not now happy where she was, she complied. 

Elizabeth had been queen three years when Mary, Queen 
of Scots, embarked at Calais for her own rough, quarreling 
country. As she came out of the harbor, a vessel was lost 
before her eyes ; and she said, "O good God ! what an omen 
this is for such a voyage ! " She was very fond of France, 

15 




QUEEN MARY AT THE FRENCH COURT. 



226 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

and sat on the deck, looking back at it and weeping, until it 
was quite dark. When she went to bed, she directed to be 
called at daybreak, if the French coast was still visible, that 
she might behold it for the last time. As it proved to be a 
clear morning, this was done ; and she again wept for the 
country she was leaving, and said many times, " Farewell, 
France ! Farewell, France ! I shall never see thee again ! " 
All this was long remembered afterwards, as sorrowful and 
interesting in a fair young princess of nineteen. Indeed, I 
am afraid it gradually came together with her distresses, to 
surround her with greater sympathy than she deserved. 

When she came to Scotland, and took up her abode at 
the palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh, she found herself 
among uncouth strangers, and wild, uncomfortable customs, 
Very different from her experience in the court of France. 
She found people who were disposed to love her, and people 
who were not disposed to love her, and among the latter 
were the powerful leaders of the Reformed Church, who 
were bitter upon her amusements, however innocent, and 
denounced music and dancing as the works of the devil. John 
Knox, the great Scotch preacher and reformer, himself often 
lectured her violently and angrily, and did much to make her 
life unhappy. All these reasons confirmed her old attachment 
to the Romish religion, and caused her, there is no doubt, 
most imprudently and dangerously, both for herself and for 
England too, to give a solemn pledge to the heads of the 
Roman Church, that, if she ever succeeded to the English 
crown, she would set up that religion again. In reading her 
unhappy history, you must always remember this. 

That Elizabeth was not inclined to like her is pretty cer- 
tain. Elizabeth was very vain and jealous, and had an extra- 
ordinary dislike to people being married. She treated Lady 



THE BABY QUEEN 



227 



Catherine Grey, sister of the beheaded Lady Jane, with such 
shameful severity, for no other reason than her being secretly 
married, that she died and her husband was ruined ; so, when 
a second marriage for Mary began to be talked about, prob- 
ably Elizabeth disliked her more. 

Aside from her being a queen, Mary was sought in mar- 
riage by many for herself alone. A lovely and attractive 
widow of nineteen, even without a crown as a wedding dower, 
might well have gained many suitors. Celebrated far and 
wide, as she was, for her radiant beauty, the great charm of 
her manners, and her 
gaiety and love of 
pleasure, it is not 
strange that princes 
as well as nobles 
sought to win her 
hand. 

Queen Elizabeth 
and her council were 
opposed to Mary's 
marrying a Catholic 
prince, for no one could say that she might not some day sit on 
the English throne, and if so it would be far better for her to 
have a Protestant husband. It was even proposed that Lord 
Leicester, one of the most favored lovers of Elizabeth, should 
marry the Scottish queen — as a matter of policy. But she at 
length found a lover who pleased Elizabeth in Henry Stuart, 
Lord Darnley, who was Mary's cousin, and, like her, was 
descended from the royal families of Scotland and England. 
Elizabeth, who doubtless wanted to get this troublesome 
matter off her hands, consented that Darnley should go to 
Edinburgh and try his fortune at the palace of Holyrood. 




MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS EMBARKING AT CALAIS. 



228 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

It was not much of a compliment to the Queen of Scots, 
to send her such a suitor. All that can be said in his favor 
was that he could dance and play the guitar. Lord Darnly 
soon married the queen. This marriage does not say much 
for her, but what followed will presently say less. 

Mary had been married but a little while, when she 
began to hate her husband — which is not to be wondered at, 
considering the kind of man he was. He, in his turn, began to 
hate David Rizzio, with whom he had leagued to gain 
her favor, and whom he now believed to be her lover. He 
hated Rizzio to that extent, that he made a compact with 
Lord Ruthven and three other lords to get rid of him by 
murder. This they cruelly did in the queen's presence. 

Soon after this Darnley was stricken with small-pox in his 
father's house at Glasgow, and thither went Mary, pretending 
to be very anxious about him, and to love him very much. 
If she wanted to get him in her power, she succeeded to her 
heart's content ; for she induced him to go back with her to 
Edinburgh, and to occupy, instead of the palace, a lone house 
outside the city called the Kirk of Field. Here he lived for 
about a week. One Sunday night, she remained with him 
until ten o'clock, and then left him to go to Holyrood to 
be present at an entertainment given in celebration of the 
marriage of one of her favorite servants. At two o'clock in 
the morning the city was shaken by an explosion, and the Kirk 
of Field was blown to fragments, and so perished Darnley. 

Bothwell soon afterwards seized the queen, on her return 
from a visit to Sterling, and carried her to Dunbar Castle, 
saying plainly that he intended to force her to marry him. 
It may be that this was another plot to which Mary was a 
party, for she married him willingly. When this marriage was 
made public the indignation of the people knew no bounds. 



THE BABY QUEEN 229 

Such guilty unions seldom prosper. This husband and 
wife had lived together but a month, when they were separated 
forever by the successes of a band of Scotch nobles who 
associated against them for the protection of Mary's son 
James, then only a year old. Mary was sent a prisoner to 
Lochleven Castle ; which, as it stood in the midst of a lake, 
could only be approached by boat. Here, one Lord Lindsay, 
who was so much of a brute that the nobles would have done 
better if they had chosen a mere gentleman for their messen- 
ger, made her sign her abdication in favor of her infant son, 
and appoint her brother, Murray, regent of Scotland. Mary 
succeeded in escaping from the castle after several attempts. 
On the shore of the lake remote from the castle, she was met 
by Earl Douglas and a few lords ; and, so accompanied, rode 
away on horseback to Hamilton, where they raised three 
thousand men. Here, she issued a proclamation declaring 
that the abdication she had signed in her prison was illegal, 
and requiring the regent to yield to his lawful queen. This 
was to no purpose for she and her followers were defeated 
and she had to take shelter at Dundrennan Abbey, whence 
she fled for safety to Elizabeth's dominions. 

Mary Queen of Scots came to England — to her own 
ruin, the trouble of the kingdom and the misery and death of 
many — in the year 1568. How she left it and the world, 
nineteen years afterwards, is soon told. 

When Mary arrived in England, she was almost destitute 
of all necessaries and rashly threw herself on the generosity 
of Queen Elizabeth, who refused to admit her into her pres- 
ence, because she was not yet cleared from the charge of 
murder. Treated as a prisoner, Mary was confined at Bolton 
Castle, Coventry and Fotheringay. 

She had many adherents in England, who made several 



2 3 o ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

attempts against the power and life of Elizabeth. In 1586 
she was accused of complicity in Babington's conspiracy, for 
which she was tried by a commission and condemned almost 
without proof. But let us speak of this more fully. 

Mary Queen of Scots arrived in England, without money 
and without any other clothes than those she wore, she wrote 
to Elizabeth, representing herself as an innocent and injured 
piece of royalty, and entreating her assistance to oblige her 
Scottish subjects to take her back again and obey her. But, 
as her character was already known in England to be a very 
different one from what she made it out to be, she was told 
in answer that she must first clear herself. Made uneasy by 
this condition, Mary, rather than stay in England, would 
have gone to Spain or to France, or would even have gone 
back to Scotland. But, as her doing either would have been 
likely to trouble England afresh, it was decided that she 
should be detained here. She first came to Carlise, and, 
after that, was moved about from castle to castle, as was con- 
sidered necessary ; but England she never left again. 

There was not much that came of the trial, though letters 
between her and Bothwell were produced which seemed to 
prove that she was one of the guilty parties in the murder of 
Darnley. One thing came, which was that Elizabeth never let 
her see Scotland again, though she soon found that she had 
a very troublesome prisoner. 

First, the Duke of Norfolk took a fancy that he would 
like to marry her, and acted in a way that made Elizabeth 
send him to the Tower of London. Then there came a con- 
spiracy in which the Pope and some of the Catholic kings of 
Europe took part, to depose Elizabeth, put Mary on the 
throne, and bring back the old religion. Some time after that 
the Duke of Norfolk was set free, and he quickly began to 



THE BABY QUEEN 231 

plot again, and wrote letters to the Pope, seeking to foment 
a rebellion in England which would force Elizabeth to let him 
marry Mary and repeal the laws against the Catholics. This 
time he was tried and found guilty of treason, and had his 
head cut off for his pains. 

Years after that there arose another plot, the worst of 
them all, for its purpose was to murder Queen Elizabeth and 
thus put Mary on the throne. It was not long before this 
was found out, with the result that all the conspirators were 
taken and executed. As there was good reason to believe 
that Mary was concerned in this plot, she was taken to 
Fotheringay Castle, in Northamptonshire, and put on trial for 
the crime. She denied it all, even her own letters, which 
were produced at the trial, but she was found guilty and 
declared to have incurred the penalty of death. 

The Parliament met, approved the sentence, and prayed 
the queen to have her executed. The queen replied that she 
requested them to consider whether no means could be found 
of saving Mary's life without endangering her own. The 
Parliament rejoined, No, and the citizens illuminated their 
houses and lighted bonfires, in token of their joy that all 
these plots and troubles were to be ended by the death of 
the Queen of Scots. 

She feeling sure that her time was now come, wrote a 
letter to the Queen of England, making three entreaties : first, 
that she might be buried in France ; secondly, that she might 
not be executed in secret, but before her servants and some 
others ; thirdly, that, after her death, her servants should not 
be molested, but should be suffered to go home with the 
legacies she left them. It was an affecting letter; and Eliza- 
beth shed tears over it, but sent no answer. Then came a 
special ambassador from France, and another from Scotland, 



232 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

to intercede for Mary's life ; and then the nation began to 
clamor, more and more, for her death. 

What the real feelings or intentions of Elizabeth were, 
can never be known now, but it is strongly to be suspected that 
she wished only one thing more than Mary's death, and that was 
to keep free of the blame of it. On the ist of February, 1587, 
Lord Burleigh having drawn out the warrant for the execution, 
the queen sent to the secretary, Davison, to bring it to her 
that she might sign it ; which she did. Next day, when 
Davison told her it was sealed she angrily asked him why 
such haste was necessary. Next day but one she joked about 
it, and swore a little. Again next day but one, she seemed 
to complain that it was not yet done ; but still she would not 
be plain with those about her. So, on the 7th, the Earls of 
Kent and Shrewsbury, with the sheriff of Northamptonshire, 
came with the warrant to Fotheringay, to tell the Queen of 
Scots to prepare for death. 

When those messengers of ill omen were gone, Mary 
made a frugal supper, drank to her servants, read over her 
will, went to bed, slept for some hours and then arose and 
passed the remainder of the night saying prayers. In the 
morning she dressed herself in her best clothes ; and at 
eight o'clock when the sheriff came for her to her chapel, 
took leave of her servants who were there assembled praying 
with her, and went down stairs, carrying a Bible in one hand 
and .a crucifix in the other. Two of her women and four of 
her men were allowed to be present in the hall, where a 
low scaffold was erected and covered with black ; and where 
the executioner and his assistants stood, dressed in black 
velvet. The hall was full of people. While the sentence 
was being read, she sat upon a stool ; and when it was 
finished, she again denied her guilt. The Earl of Kent 



THE BABY QUEEN 



*33 



and the Dean of Peterborough, in their Protestant zeal, 
made some very unnecessary speeches to her ; to which she 
replied she died in the Catholic religion, and they need 
not trouble themselves about that matter. When her head 
and neck were uncovered by the executioners, she said, that 
she had not been used to be undressed by such hands, 
or before so much company. Finally, one of her women 
fastened a cloth over her face ; and she laid her neck upon 
the block, and repeated more than once in Latin, " Into 
thy hands, O Lord ! I commend my spirit." Some say her 
head was struck off in two blows, some say in three. How- 
ever that be, when it was held up, streaming with blood, the 
real hair beneath the false hair she had long worn was seen 
to be as gray as that of a woman of seventy, though she was 
at that time only in her forty-sixth year. All her beauty was 
gone. 

But she was beautiful enough to her little dog, 
cowered under her dress, frightened, when she went 
the scaffold, and who lay down beside her headless 
when all her earthly sorrows were over. 



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Two Princes Want the Throne 



You have read the pitiful story of how the little princes 
in the Tower were slain by order of their wicked uncle, 
Richard Third. It was then said that there were some who 
did not believe they were dead, but that they still lived and 
might come to the throne at last. We have now to tell the 
story of one who claimed to be the Duke of York, one of 
the princes in the Tower, and who had many and exciting 
adventures in his struggle for the throne. 

This was in the reign of Henry Seventh, who became 
king after the death of the wicked Richard on Bosworth Field. 
Henry was an able monarch, and he was not a cruel one 
where there was nothing to be gained by it. He was cold, 
crafty and calculating, and loved money so greatly that he 
would do almost anything for it. The most famous event in 
his reign was the struggle of two boys for the throne. It is 
the story of these with which we are now concerned. 

There was a priest at Oxford of the name of Simons, 
who had for a pupil a handsome boy named Lambert Simnel, 
the son of a baker. Partly to gratify his own ambitious ends, 

235 



236 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

and partly to carry out the designs of a secret party formed 
against the king, this priest declared that his pupil, the boy, 
was no other than the young Earl of Warwick, a descendant 
of Edward Third, who (as everybody might have known) 
was safely locked up in the Tower of London. The priest 
and the boy went over to Ireland and at Dublin enlisted 
in their cause all ranks of the people. The Earl of Kildare, 
the Governor of Ireland, declared that he believed the boy 
to be what the priest represented; and the boy, who had 
been well tutored by the priest, told them such things of his 
childhood and gave them so many descriptions of the royal 
family that they were perpetually shouting and hurrahing 
and drinking his health, and making all kinds of noisy and 
thirsty demonstrations to express their belief in him. 

Nor was this feeling confined to Ireland alone ; for the 
Earl of Lincoln, whom Richard Third had named as his 
successor, went over to the young pretender. After holding 
a secret correspondence with the Dowager Duchess of Bur- 
gundy, the sister of Edward Fourth, who detested the present 
king and all his race, he sailed to Dublin with two thousand 
German soldiers provided by her. In this promising state 
of the boy's fortunes he was crowned with a crown taken 
off the head of a statue of the Virgin Mary, and was then, ac- 
cording to the Irish custom of those days, carried home on the 
shoulders of a big chieftain possessing a great deal more 
strength than sense. Father Simons, you may be sure, was 
mighty busy at the coronation. 

Ten days afterwards the Germans and the Irish, and the 
priest and the boy, and the Earl of Lincoln, all landed in 
Lancashire to invade England. The king, who had good 
intelligence of their movements, set up his standard at Not- 
tingham, where vast numbers resorted to him every day, 



TWO PRINCES WANT THE THRONE 



237 



while the Earl of Lincoln could gain very few. With his 
small force he tried to make for the town of Newark ; but the 
king's army getting between him and that place, he had no 
choice but to risk a battle at Stoke. It soon ended in the 
complete destruction of the pretender's forces, one-half of 
whom were killed; 
among them the earl 
himself. 

The priest and 
the baker's boy were 
taken prisoners. The 
priest, after confess- 
ing the trick, was shut 
up in prison, where 
he afterwards died — 
suddenly, perhaps. 
The boy was taken 
into the king's kitchen 
and made a turnspit. 
Henry thought it 
better to make him 
ridiculous than to cut 
off his head and make 
him a martyr. He 
was afterwards raised 
to the station of one 
of the king's falcon- 
ers; and so ended this strange imposition. 

One might suppose that the end of this story would have 
put the Irish people on their guard ; but they were quite 
ready to receive a second impostor, as they had received the 
first, and that same troublesome Duchess of Burgundy soon 




ON BOSWORTH FIELD 



2 3 8 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

gave them the opportunity. All of a sudden there appeared 
at Cork, in a vessel arriving from Portugal, a young man of 
excellent abilities, of very handsome appearance and most 
winning manners, who declared himself to be Richard, Duke 
of York, the second son of King Edward Fourth. 

"O," said some, even of those ready Irish believers, 
"but surely that young prince was murdered by his uncle in 
the tower!" "It is supposed so," said the engaging young 
man; "and my brother was killed in that gloomy prison; 
but I escaped — it don't matter how, at present — and have 
been wandering about the world for seven long years." 

This explanation being quite satisfactory to numbers of 
the Irish people, they began again to shout and hurrah, and 
to drink the handsome young fellow's health, and to make the 
noisy and thirsty demonstrations all over again. And the 
big chieftain in Dublin began to look out for another coro- 
nation and another young king to be carried home on his back. 

Now, King Henry being then on bad terms with France, 
the French king, Charles Eighth, saw that by pretending 
to believe in the handsome young man he could trouble his 
enemy sorely. So he invited him over to the French court 
and appointed him a body-guard, and treated him in all 
respects as if he really were the Duke of York. Peace, 
however, being soon concluded between the two kings, the 
pretended duke was turned adrift and wandered for protection 
to the Duchess of Burgundy. She declared him to be the 
very picture of her. dear departed brother, gave him a body- 
guard at her court of thirty halberdiers, and called him by 
the sounding name of the White Rose of England. 

The leading members of the White-Rose party in Eng- 
land sent over an agent, named Sir Robert Clifford, to ascer- 
tain whether the White Rose's claims were good; the king 



TWO PRINCES WANT THE THRONE 239 

also sent over his agents to inquire into his history. The 
White Rose declared the young man to be really the Duke 
of York; the king's agents declared him to be Perkin War- 
beck, the son of a merchant of the city of Tournay, who had 
acquired his knowledge of England, its language and man- 
ners, from the English merchants who trade in Flanders ; it 
was also stated by the royal agents that he had been in the 
service of Lady Brompton, the wife of an exiled English 
nobleman, and that the Duchess of Burgundy had caused 
him to be trained and taught expressly for this deception. 

The king required the Archduke Philip — who was 
the sovereign of Burgundy — to banish this new pretender 
or to deliver him up; but, as the archduke replied that he 
could not control the duchess in her own land, the king, in 
revenge, took the market of English cloth away from Ant- 
werp, and prevented all commercial intercourse between the 
two countries. 

He also, by arts and bribes, prevailed on Sir Robert 
Clifford, a member of the White-Rose party, to betray 
those who had employed him, and being told that 
several famous English noblemen were secretly the friends 
of Perkin Warbeck, the king had three of the foremost 
executed at once. Whether he pardoned the remainder 
because they were poor I do not know ; but it is only too 
probable that he refused to pardon one famous nobleman 
against whom the same Clifford soon afterwards informed, 
because he was rich. This was no other than Sir William 
Stanley, who had saved the king's life at the battle of Bos- 
worth Field. It is very doubtful whether his treason amounted 
to much more than his having said that, if he were sure the 
young man was the Duke of York, he would not take arms 
against him. Whatever he had done he admitted like an 



2 4 o ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

honorable spirit, and he lost his head for it and the covetous 
king gained all his wealth. 

Perkin Warbeck kept quiet for three years ; but as the 
Flemings began to complain heavily of the loss of their 
trade by the stoppage of the Antwerp market on his account, 
and as it was not unlikely that they might even go so far as 
to take his life or give him up, he found it necessary to do 
something. Accordingly, he made a desperate sally and 
landed, with only a few hundred men, on the coast of Deal. 

But he was soon glad to get back to the place from 
whence he came ; for the country people rose against his 
followers, killed a great many, and took a hundred and fifty 
prisoners, who were all driven to London, tied together with 
ropes like a team of cattle. Every one of them was hanged 
on some part or other of the sea-shore, in order that, if any 
more men should come over with Perkin Warbeck, they might 
see the bodies as a warning before they landed. 

Then the wary king, by making a treaty of commerce 
with the Flemings, drove Perkin Warbeck out of that coun- 
try, and, by completely gaining over the Irish to his side, 
deprived him of that asylum too. The youth next wandered 
away to Scotland, and told his story at that court. King 
James Fourth of Scotland, who was no friend to King Henry, 
and had no reason to be (for King Henry had bribed his 
Scotch lords to betray him more than once, but had never 
succeeded in his plots), gave him a great reception, called 
him his cousin, and gave him in marriage the Lady Catherine 
Gordon, a beautiful and charming creature, related to the 
royal house of Stuart. 

Alarmed by this successful reappearance of the Pretender, 
the king still undermined and bought and bribed, and kept his 
doings and Perkin Warbeck' s story in the dark, when he might, 



TWO PRINCES WANT THE THRONE 



241 



one would imagine, have rendered the matter clear to all 
England. But for all this bribing of the Scotch lords, at 
the Scotch king's court, he could not procure the Pretender 
to be delivered up to him. James, though not very particular 
in many respects, would not betray his guest; and the 
ever-busy Duchess of Burgundy so 
provided him with arms and good 
soldiers, and with money besides, 
that he had soon a little army of 
fifteen hundred men of various 
nations. With these, and aided by 
the Scottish king in person, he crossed 
the border into England and made 
a proclamation to the people, in which 
he called the -king "Henry Tudor," 
offered large rewards to any who 
should take or distress him, and 
announced himself as King Richard 
Fourth, come to receive the homage 
of his faithful subjects. His faithful 
subjects, however, cared nothing for 
him, and hated his faithful troops, 
who, being of different nations, 
quarreled also among themselves. 
Worse than this, if worse were 
possible, they began to plunder the 
country; upon which the White Rose 
said that he would rather lose his 
rights than gain them through the miseries of the English 
people. The Scottish king made a jest of his scruples; 
but they and their whole force went back again without 
fighting a battle. 
16 




A LADY OF THIS PERIOD 



242 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

Perkin Warbeck, doomed to wander up and down, and 
never to find rest anywhere — a sad fate, almost a sufficient 
punishment for an imposture which he seems in time to 
have half believed himself — lost his Scottish refuge through 
a truce being made between the two kings and found 
himself once more without a country before him in which 
he could lay his head. But James (always honorable and 
true to him, alike when he melted down his plate, and even 
the great gold chain he had been used to wear, to pay his 
soldiers in his cause, and now, when that cause was lost 
and hopeless) did not conclude the treaty until Perkin had 
safely departed out of the Scottish dominions. He and his 
beautiful wife, who was faithful to him under all reverses, 
and left her state and home to follow his poor fortunes, 
were put aboard ship with everything necessary for their 
comfort and protection, and sailed for Ireland. 

But the Irish people had had enough of counterfeit 
Earls of Warwick and Dukes of York for one while, and 
would give the White Rose no aid. So the White Rose — 
encircled by thorns indeed — resolved to go with his beauti- 
ful wife to Cornwall as a forlorn resource, and see what 
might be made of the Cornish men, who had risen valiantly 
a little while before, and who had fought bravely at Deptford 
Bridge. 

To Whitsand Bay, in Cornwall, accordingly came Perkin 
Warbeck and his wife ; and the lovely lady he shut up for 
safety in the castle of St. Michael's Mount, and then marched 
into Devonshire at the head of three thousand Cornish men. 
These were increased to six thousand by the time of his ar- 
rival in Exeter ; but there the people made a stout resistance, 
and he went on to Taunton, where he came in sight of the 
king's army. 



TWO PRINCES WANT THE THRONE 



243 



The stout Cornish men, although they were few . in 
number and badly armed, were so bold that they never 
thought of retreating, but bravely looked forward to a battle 
on the morrow. Unhappily for them, the man who was pos- 
sessed of so many engaging qualities, and who attracted so 
many people to his side when he had 
nothing else with which to tempt them, 
was not as brave as they. In the night, 
when the two armies lay opposite to 
each other, he mounted a swift horse 
and fled. When morning dawned, the 
poor confiding Cornish men, discover- 
ing they had no leader, surrendered to 
the king's power. Some of them were 
hanged; and the rest pardoned and 
went miserably home. 

Before the king pursued Perkin 
Warbeck to the sanctuary of Beaulieu 
in the New Forest, where it was soon 
known that he had taken refuse, he 
sent a body of horsemen to St. Mich- 
ael's Mount to seize his wife. She 
was soon taken, and brought as a 
captive before the king. But she was 
so beautiful and so good, and so de- 
voted to the man in whom she believed, 
that the king regarded her with com- 
passion, treated her with great respect, 
and placed her at court, near the queen's person. And many 
years after when Perkin Warbeck was no more, and when his 
strange story had become like a nursery tale, she was called the 
White Rose, by the people, in remembrance of her beauty. 




A DANDY OF THIS PERIOD 



244 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

The sanctuary at Beaulieu was soon surrounded by the 
king's men ; and the king, pursuing his usual dark, artful 
ways, sent pretended friends to Perkin Warbeck to persuade 
him to come out and surrender himself. This he soon did. 
The king, having, taken a good look from behind a screen at 
the man of whom he had heard so much, directed him to be 
well mounted, and to ride behind him at a little distance, 
guarded, but not bound in any way. So they entered Lon- 
don with the king's favorite show — a procession ; and some 
of the people hooted as the Pretender rode slowly through 
the streets to the Tower, but the greater part were quiet and 
very curious to see him. From the Tower he was taken to 
the palace at Westminster, and there lodged like a gentle- 
man, though closely watched. He was examined every now 
and then as to his imposture, but the king was so secret in 
all he did that even then he gave it a consequence which it 
cannot be supposed to have in itself deserved. 

At last Perkin Warbeck ran away and took refuge in 
another sanctuary near Richmond in Surrey. From this he 
was again persuaded to deliver himself up, and being con- 
veyed to London, he stood in the stocks for a whole day, 
outside Westminster Hall, and there read a paper purporting 
to be his full confession, and relating his history as the king's 
agents had originally described it. He was then shut up in 
the Tower again, in the company of the Earl of Warwick, who 
had now been there for fourteen years — ever since his removal 
out of Yorkshire, except when the king had him at court, 
and had shown him to the people, to prove the imposture 
of the baker's boy. 

It is but too probable, when we consider the crafty char- 
acter of Henry Seventh, that these two men were brought 
together for a cruel purpose. A plot was scon discovered 



TWO PRINCES WANT THE THRONE 



245 



between them and the keepers, to murder the governor, get 
possession of the keys and proclaim Perkin Warbeck as King 
Richard Fourth. That there was some such plot is likely; 
that they were tempted into it is at least as likely; that the 
unfortunate Earl of Warwick — last male of the Plantagenet 
line — was too unused to the world, and too ignorant and 
simple to know much about it, whatever it was, is perfectly 
certain; and that it was the king's interest to get rid of him 
is no less so. He was beheaded on Tower Hill, and Perkin 
Warbeck was hanged at Tyburn. 

Such was the end of the pretended Duke of York, whose 
shadowy history was made more shadowy, and ever will be, 
by the mystery and craft of the king. That he was really the 
Duke of York is very unlikely, but so much mystery sur- 
rounds his story that no one can be sure that he was not the 
prince he claimed to be. 





2 4 6 




1/ftlir 



£f?e Story 



of 



Prince (Efyctrtes 

anb €fy> 

Spanish Princess 



A Romance of Two Kingdoms. 



IN reading about the doings of kings and princes we must 
bear in mind that they all began life as boys, just like 
the rest of us, and that many of them loved fun and 
were given to wild pranks. If any of you read the 
plays of Shakespeare you will find there the story of the jolly 
doings of Prince Hal, who afterwards became King Henry 
the Fifth. I am now going to tell you of a boyish adventure 
of another of the princes of England, Prince Charles, who 
became king as Charles the First. 

Prince Charles had been shown the picture of a beautiful 
young girl, the daughter of the king of Spain, whom his 
father, James the First, wanted him to marry. The warm- 
hearted young man looked long at the picture, and looked 
long again, and said to himself, "If she is so pretty on paper, 
how lovely she must be in real life. How I would like to 
see her and learn if she is as charming as this lovely portrait 
makes her." , The desire to meet her grew on him day by 
247 



2 4 8 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

day, and in time it led to a wild adventure, such as we do not 
look for in princes, who usually are watched very closely. I 
am sure you will all enjoy reading about this boyish prank of 
Prince Charles. 

If any of you had been at the ferry at Gravesend, on the 
river Thames, on a fine morning in February, 1623, you 
might have seen two plainly dressed young men, wearing 
heavy black beards and with their caps pulled low down over 
their faces, talking with the old ferryman, who was delighted 
to receive a gold coin for his fare. They called themselves 
Tom and John Smith, but the shrewd old fellow looked after 
them cunningly as they rode away, saying: "There's mis- 
chief under those beards. Very likely these gay young bloods, 
who fling gold about in this way, are off for a duel or some 
other wild game." 

On rode the travelers through the winter morning, 
meeting several adventures on their way, and even making a 
narrow escape from being arrested for two murderers whom 
the police were after. But at length they found themselves 
safely on the deck of a ship and speeding with a fresh breeze 
across the English Channel. On landing in France, they 
rode straight to Paris, and there, like schoolboys on a frolic, 
they amused themselves in wandering about the streets of 
that gay city. No doubt they were stared at by many of the 
people, not only for their foreign air, but for the beards, which 
did not seem to fit their faces very well. It is a wonder they 
were not taken up by the police for conspirators in disguise. 

There was a royal merrymaking taking place at the 
king's court that night, and to this the two young Englishmen 
obtained admittance, on the plea of being strangers in Paris. 
They highly enjoyed what they saw there, especially a dance 
in which the queen, the princess Henrietta Maria, and many 



PRINCE CHARLES 



249 



other fair ladies took part. The prettiest of them all was the 
queen, who was a sister of that princess of Spain with whose 
picture Prince Charles had fallen in love. 

Early the next morning the gay young travelers were up 
and riding out of the gates of Paris, on the road leading to 
Bayonne. They were in high spirits and pushed on at full 
speed, Tom Smith taking the lead and riding so fast that his 
comrade had some trouble to keep up with him. 

" Come on, lazy bones," cried the lively cavalier. " Yon- 
der is Spain, and there are many miles of fair France to cross 
before we set foot on its soil. We have no time to lag." 

This lively pace 
brought them before 
many days to the banks 
of the small river Bia- 
dossa, the boundary 
between the two king- 
doms. Crossing its 
waters, the truant lads 
stood on the soil of 
Spain, and here Tom 
Smith danced with wild delight, laughing merrily at the long 
face of John Smith, his companion, who was quite worn out 
by the long and hard ride. If they had been fleeing from 
pursuers they could not have made greater speed, but Tom 
seemed as fresh and gay as if he had just set out from home. 
He was as merry as a schoolboy out on a holiday. 

Now let us go back for a while to the school from which 
these truants came, the great school of life named London. 
Just now there was trouble in the streets and the court of that 
grand city. Young Prince Charles had disappeared, and no 
one knew where he had gone. The news had got abroad, 




2 5 o ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

and people in the streets looked at one another in alarm, and 
wondered if any harm could have come to the heir to the 
throne. In the palace, among the courtiers, there was still 
greater fear, and the privy councillors hurried to the king and 
fell on their knees before him, asking him in tones of terror 
if the wild rumor they had heard could be true, which was 
that the prince had gone in disguise to Spain. 

Their terror was greater when the king acknowledged 
that it was true, that Prince Charles and his bosom friend 
Buckingham had set out on a mad and merry ride to Spain, 
from which land the prince hoped to bring home a lovely 
bride. They had gone with the king's consent. 

" The king of Spain is not to be trusted with England's 
hope?" the councillors cried out. "Suppose he seizes the heir 
to the throne and holds him as a hostage ! Who knows how 
much mischief may come out of such madness ! " 

And as the news spread through England everybody 
said the same, until even the king, foolish as he was, began 
to fret and fume, and to fear that his "sweet boys and dear 
venturesome knights" might come into trouble from their 
truant prank. 

Our readers will know now who the errant scapegraces 
were, in spite of their false beards and their pulled down caps. 
But the lads themselves knew little and cared less about the 
alarm they had left behind them, as they scampered on over 
the hills and plains of Spain, Buckingham gay from the pure 
love of adventure, the heart of Charles beating with merry 
music as he thought of the charming infanta of Spain whom 
he had come so far to see. So ardent were they that on the 
evening of March 7th, seventeen days after they had left 
Buckingham's villa, they were knocking at the door of the 
Earl of Bristol, England's minister at Madrid. 



PRINCE CHARLES 



251 



We may imagine Bristol's stare of wonder on seeing who 
his visitors were. He received them as serenely as though 
they had called on him in his London mansion, but in his 
heart he wished the 
madcaps were a thou- 
sand miles away. There 
was not the best of 
feeling at that time be- 
tween the two king- 
doms, andmo one could 
tell what Philip of Spain 
might do. If he should 
hold Prince Charles as 
a prisoner, it might give 
him a great advantage 
in his dealings with 
England. 

Bristol knew well 
that the secret would 
not be kept. Charles 
would be recognized by 
some one in Madrid, 
and he had better throw 
off his disguise at once. *&£ y £$m 
So he told Count Oli 
vares, and Olivares 
told King Philip, and 
the mystery of Tom 
and John Smith was at an end. If the Prince of Wales 
had come so far to see the infanta, Philip decided it only 
kind to let him see her, and the next day the royal family 
rode through the streets of the city, with a very unconcerned 







THE BEAUTIFUL SPANISH PRINCESS AND HER SUITOR. 



2 5 2 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

air, as if out only for exercise, while in another carriage 
Charles and Buckingham rode through the same streets. In 
this way the ardent lover caught a passing glimpse of the fair 
Spanish princess, and said to himself that she was more beau- 
tiful than even the portrait sent him had told. 

A rumor as to who the strangers were had already got 
abroad, and as the carriage bearing them passed up and down 
through the streets all eyes were fixed upon them. Yet 
silence prevailed. The visit was a secret, and the loyal peo- 
ple of Madrid felt that they must keep the secrets of those of 
royal blood. 

But there was one thought in all minds, a thought of 
triumph. The English prince would not have . come so far, 
they said, unless he was ready to accept the national faith of 
Spain. King Philip, who was a devoted Catholic, felt the 
same. It seemed to him that Charles would never have 
come to Spain unless he intended to change his religion and 
embrace that of his longed-for bride. And he vowed that not a 
step towards marriage should be taken unless this was done. 

Let us go on now to a week later, when the secret had 
ceased to be a secret, and rooms were prepared for the prince 
in the king's palace, and Charles and Philip rode side by side 
through the streets to the royal abode, the people shouting 
with joy and singing a song written for them by the famous 
poet Lope de Vega, which said that Charles had come, guided 
by love, to the sky of Spain to see his star Maria. 

The palace was richly decorated, the streets showed 
many signs of public joy, and that all might join in the enjoy- 
ment all prisoners, except those held for mortal crimes, were 
set free. Among them were many Englishmen, who had 
been captured as pirates while preying on Spanish commerce, 
and were held as galley slaves. 



PRINCE CHARLES 



253 



Yet all this outward show did not help in the business of 
the marriage. The infanta may have liked the appearance of 
Charles, but she was a fervent Catholic and would not marry 
any one whom she looked on as a heretic. As for Charles, 
he had no idea of turning Catholic, and so it looked very bad 
for the match he had come so far to make. The king backed 
up his daughter, the pope backed up the king, and it appeared 
as if the prince had come to Spain in vain. 

But Charles grew daily more in love with the princess. 
He begged to have a closer interview, and this was granted 
him on Easter 
day, April 7th. 
On that day the 
king, with a train 
of grandees, led 
the English 
prince to the 
apartments of 
the queen, where 
she sat in state 
with her lovely 
daughter. 

Charles had been told what he must say. A few words 
of courtly ceremony had been taught him, and after greeting 
the queen with due respect, he turned to speak to the fair 
princess by her side. But the words given him were too cold 
for his ardent heart, and he began to address the princess in 
warm words of his own choice. In a moment there was a 
sensatibn, people began to whisper, the queen looked at him 
with angry eyes, the princess seemed sadly annoyed. Charles 
hesitated and stopped, seeing that something had gone wrong. 
The princess answered with a few cold sentences, and the 




CARRIAGE OP THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 



2 5 4 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

interview came to a sudden end. English ideas of love- 
making were not of the sort to fit the etiquette of a Spanish 
court. 

As the days and weeks went on matters grew worse 
instead of better. The infanta showed a dislike for her lover. 
Charles refused to change his faith. Buckingham's hot tem- 
per led him to quarrel with the councillors and insult the 
priests. But as for the prince, his love deepened day by 
day, and one day, in the ardor of his feelings, he leaped into 
the garden in which his lady-love was walking and addressed 
her in words of passion. The startled girl shrieked and fled, 
and it was with difficulty that the ardent suitor was kept from 
following her. 

This warmth of love led Charles to sign all the Spaniards 
asked for except that he would become a Catholic; but left 
Spain without making any more progress in his suit. He 
bade a loving good-bye to the king, though Buckingham's 
good-bye was of a different sort, taking the shape of a violent 
quarrel with Count Olivares, minister of state. The journey 
home was very different from the ride to Spain, That had 
been in the fashion of two knights-errant, a pair of gay 
youths, posing as Tom and John Smith, riding gaily through 
France and Spain, one filled with thoughts of love, the other 
with the spirit of adventure. The return journey was a stately 
cortege, its two leaders filled with anger and disappointment. 

It was, indeed, understood that the bride was to follow 
the prince to England in the spring, but the farther that 
Charles got from Madrid the more his hot love cooled, and 
the less he wanted her. He remembered her coldness instead 
of her beauty, and his passion, which had never been much 
more than a fancy, heated by the obstacles he had met, fled 
from his heart as he left the miles behind. 



PRINCE CHARLES 



255 



Never was there a warmer welcome than that Prince 
Charles received on reaching London. The people, who 
had no fancy for the Spanish marriage, were wild with delight 
that he had come back unwed. On all sides the people 
applauded, the bells merrily rang, there were shouts of " Long 
live the Prince of Wales !" The day was kept as a holiday. 
Tables laden with food and wine were set in the streets ; 
prisoners for debt were set free, their debts being paid by 
persons unknown to them ; when night fell every window 
was lighted and bonfires blazed on all sides. No one then 
would have dreamed that Prince Charles, when he became 
king, would turn the 
love of the people 
against him by his 
folly, and that some 
of those who now 
shouted with joy would 
look on with pleasure 
when he was brought 
to London as a captive 
and even when he was 
put to death by the command of stern Oliver Cromwell. 

As for the Spanish marriage, it never came off. Charles 
had lost his love. New obstacles arose. Before the year 
ended all thought of it was at an end, and Charles was look- 
ing elsewhere for a bride. He finally took for wife Princess 
Henrietta Maria of France, the handsome lady whom he and 
Buckingham had seen dancing in a royal masque, during 
their holiday visit in disguise to Paris. 





256 




England in the Nineteenth Century, 



AND now we come to the history of what happened only 
the other day — that is, some sixty years before you 
children were born or thought of. 

In a pleasant palace, surrounded by beautiful gardens, a 
little girl was brought up by her loving mother. Her teach- 
ers instructed her in music and languages, in history, and all 
the things that children learn at school. Her mother taught 
her goodness and her duty. There she grew up fresh and 
innocent as the flowers in her own garden, living a secluded 
life, like a princess in an enchanted palace. 

And there one morning in early summer, when the roses 
were just beginning to bloom in the beautiful palace gardens, 
the young Princess was wakened by her mother, who told 
her that her uncle, the King, was dead, and now she herself, 
this young girl, must wear the crown. The King's Ministers 
were waiting to speak to her. 

17 . 257 



253 



ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 



The young Princess jumped out of bed and put on her 
dressing gown. She did not even wait to put on her stock- 
ings, but went down with her little pink feet showing like 
rose-leaves above her slippers, and there she received the 
homage of the old men who had been her uncle's advisers, 
and who greeted the fair young girl as Queen of England. 
But we are sure you wish to know more of the good 

Queen Victoria than we 
have told you about the 
other queens of England. 
She was, as you know, the 
mother of King Edward 
VII and the grandmother 
of the Prince of Wales, 
who so recently visited 
Canada and other parts of 
the empire. So we shall go 
back with our story and 
begin from the first. 

The childhood of 
Queen Victoria was not 
so full of adventure as the 
childhood of other kings 
and queens of England, 
yet her home life was a 
most interesting one, and we will learn as we go on that she 
was much like other little girls in what she did, and what she 
studied, for she had a most sensible mother, who did not 
allow the thought of her little daughter ever being Queen of 
England to influence her in the least as to her education and 
training. So the little Princess received as good a training 
as any sensible mother could have given her daughter. 




GATEWAY OF KENSINGTON PALACE. 




259 



26o 



ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 



Victoria's father was the Duke of Kent, who was the 
fourth son of George III of England. Being the fourth son 
he, of course, did not have any idea of ever becoming King 
of England himself. But, as we shall learn, by the death of 
his older brothers, who did not leave any children, the right 
to become king or queen came to his family, and in this way 
his little daughter became the Queen of England. Her 
mother was a sister of Leopold I, King of the Belgians, a most 
lovely and sensible woman, as every one knows who knows 

the story of the life of the little 
princess. 

This little girl named Princess 
Victoria was born within the homely 
brick walls of Kensington Palace 
on May 24, 181 9. At the time of 
her birth she had several first 
cousins, and almost all of 
were German born. There 
several of these who would 
had the first chance of 
Queen of England had they lived, 
so it was not really sure at the 
time" when Princess Victoria was a baby that she would 
become the Queen of England, yet, when she was born 
in this palace, which was one of the poorest of the royal 
palaces, her chances were good enough to cause a great deal 
of interest among her relatives and friends. In fact, one of 
her old aunties in writing of her birth says: "Again a Char- 
lotte destined perhaps to play a great part one day, if a brother 
is not born to take it out of her hands. The English like 
queens." This was indeed truer than people thought at the 
time. The English people have cause to like queens, for 




\ 



LEOPOLD I, KING OF THE BELGIANS. 



them 
were 
have 



becoming 



262 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



England has never been more famous or full of genius than 
when her monarchs were women, and, although George III 
with his many good qualities was a popular king, he was the 
only one of his race who had been so well thought of. 

As George III, who was the grandfather of Queen Vic- 
toria, was a German 
and belonged to the 
House of Hanover, 
so Victoria and her 
descendants are 
called Hanoverians. 
The English people 
never did like to 
have it said that their 
rulers came from Ger- 
many, but when the 
charming Princess 
was born in England 
and educated there, 
she won the hearts 
of the English people 
and overcame the 
prejudices they had 
towards the German 
family. 

When the Prin- 
cess Victoria was only a few months old, her father died, 
and soon after poor old King George, her grandfather, 
passed away. As we have told you before, Princess 
Victoria's father was the fourth son of George III so he 
did not come to the throne. The next king was George 
IV an uncle of Queen Victoria. George III did not leave 




PRINCESS VICTORIA AT THE AGE OF TEN. 



VICTORIA REGINA 263 

very much property to his son, the Duke of Kent, who was 
Victoria's father, so that she really was the daughter of a poor 
man, and the mother, now left a widow, had very small means 
with which to educate her child. Her mother, being a Ger- 
man princess, naturally would desire to return to her own 
land with her little girl and educate her there, but she was a 
sensible woman, and thought that the English people would 
like her little girl much better if Victoria stayed in England 
and was educated there, for she still had an idea that Victoria 
might some day become queen of all England. It would be 
much bettdr for her in that case to be an English than a Ger- 
man girl. 

It was very fortunate for the little princess that her mother 
had a good brother in Prince Leopold. He hastened over to 
England to help his sister, and did much to make the life of 
the little princess comfortable and happy. So it was in the 
Palace of Kensington, away from the eyes and bustle of Lon- 
don, in the most quiet and unpretending way, that the little 
princess received her early education. 

When Princess Victoria was nine years old, Sir Walter 
Scott, the famous writer of those beautiful stories which all 
children enjoy reading, visited the Duchess of Kent, as the 
mother of Princess Victoria was called, and met the little 
princess. In writing of this visit he says, " This little lady is 
educated with much care and watched so closely that no busy 
maid has a moment to whisper ' You are the heir of England.' 
I suspect if we could dissect the little heart we should find 
that some pigeon or other bird of the air had carried the mat- 
ter. She is fair like the royal family." But nevertheless it 
was true that the little princess for many years knew nothing 
of the important position she was to occupy. 

Her mother brought her up to practice economy, and to 



264 



ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 



be careful how she spent her pin money. In fact, there were 
very few children who had so little pocket money to spend. 
There is a story told which is very interesting, as it shows 
how carefully the little princess was watched There was a 
bazaar, or public sale, being held near the castle, and the little 
princess was taken there to buy presents. After she had 
bought some for almost all her cousins, and had spent her 

last shilling, she remem- 
bered one cousin more 
and saw a box which 
pleased her. Its price 
was half a crown. 

The shop people, as 
we may well believe, 
placed the box with the 
other purchases the prin- 
cess had made, but the 
;•;. - little lady's governess 
|p||?s told them that she could 
-V-not have it. "You see," 
lllliS^she said, "the princess 
has not got the money ; 
therefore, of course, she 
cannot buy the box " On 
the queen as an officer of her regiment hearing this, the shop 
people offered to lay the box aside until it could be paid 
for, and the answer was, " Oh, well, if you will be so good 
as to do that." On quarter day, when she received her pin 
money, before seven in the morning, the princess appeared 
on her donkey to claim her purchase. Does not this read 
like a story out of some fairybook. For all that, we believe 
it is true. 







VICTORIA REGINA 265 

After the death of George the Fourth, William the Fourth 
became king. Little Victoria was only twelve years old, and 
as her nearest English relative was not popular in England, 
Parliament passed a law by which the mother of the little 
Princess, the Duchess of Kent, would become regent, or tem- 
porary ruler of England, if the king should die before the 
little princess was eighteen years old. After this law was 
passed, it was thought necessary to tell the little girl herself 
of what might happen, and make her understand that she was 
not merely one of an ordinary lot of princesses and princes, 
but that she was the first among all of them, the future 
head of the royal family. So, as she was in the midst 
of her daily lessons, somewhat surprised, it would seem, at 
the hard work required of her, since it was much harder than 
that expected from the other children, the news was broken to 
her. The story is told in a letter from her governess written 
to her after she had become queen. She said that : 

"The princess, having lifted up the forefinger of her right 
hand while she spoke, gave me that little hand, saying, ' I 
will be good. I understand now why you urged me so much 
to learn even Latin. My cousins Agusta and Mary never 
did ; but you told me Latin is the foundation of English 
grammar and of all the elegant expressions, and I learned it 
as you wished; but I understand all better now.' And the 
little princess gave me her hand, repeating 'I will be good.' " 

For six years little Victoria was in training for her great 
life work. She was enabled to enjoy most of the pleasures 
of childhood, although there were many things she could not 
do that other children do. You remember, I told you, that 
her mother was a German princess, so it happened that she 
had many cousins who were German, but as her mother 
never took her out of England, she did not know them. 



266 



ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 



There was one in particular whom every one afterwards 
learned to love. He was her second cousin, and one she 
soon became very fond of. He was known later as the 
good Prince Albert, the husband of the queen, her wise 
counsellor and the good father of her children. 

Albert was born within a few months of the time in 
which Victoria was born, and the good Prince Leopold — who 




THE QUEEN AND HER CONSORT GREETED BY THE PEOPLE. 

in the year 1831 was elected king of the Belgians — was 
his uncle, just as he. was uncle to Princess Victoria. As 
Prince Leopold was very fond of his little nephew in Ger- 
many, it is not surprising that the thought occurred to him 
that if the little boy grew up to be a handsome and noble 
prince, the little princess in England, although his second 
cousin, might become fond of him, and who could tell what 
would be the result. So the wise Leopold took as much 



VICTORIA REGINA 267 

care in seeing that his little German nephew received a care- 
ful education and training as was done in the case of his little 
English niece, the Princess Victoria. 

After awhile Albert made his first trip to England to pay 
a visit to his aunt and cousin whom he had never yet seen. 
Each of the cousins, Prince Albert and Princess Victoria, was 
now seventeen years of age. He was fine and noble-looking, 
and she had a beautiful young face and charming manners. 
After having a good time at parties and balls given in honor 
of Prince Albert and his brother, who was with him, the 
young German princes went back to their own country. Gf 
course, people began to talk, but no one thought there was 
anything unusual in this visit of the German prince. 

Soon after the visit of the prince to England, there took 
place another event of great importance to the princess, of 
which I shall now tell you. When Victoria was a mere 
girl in her teens, her uncle, William IV, who was then 
king of England, was taken by his death illness, and one 
night, sooner than was expected, he died, This is what then 
happened. The king died at twenty minutes after two o'clock 
in the morning, and it became somebody's duty immediately 
to tell the young princess that she was the Queen of England. 
This duty was performed by the King's Councillors, who 
came in state to her apartments in the palace. So she 
was roused from slumber in the early morning to be told 
she was the Queen of England. She was just past her 
eighteenth birthday. 

I am sure you wish to know what came of that first visit 
of the German Prince Albert to his cousin. I hardly need 
tell you this, for, no doubt, all of you will say at once that 
he afterwards married the queen. Yes, that is true, but 
the story of how it came about is also interesting, for it 



268 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

reads almost like a romance, and you must read it when you 
are older in the complete story of the queen and her reign. 

In the meantime the young queen went on performing 
her duties. She met with her lords in council and opened 
Parliament in state. Every one was surprised at the knowl- 
edge she had of state affairs, and the grace and ease with 
which she presided at the meetings of her councillors. She 
also had made for herself a military uniform which she wore 
when she reviewed her troops. She wore a cap and a sash, 
and the soldiers were very proud of her in her pretty uniform. 

Here let me tell you of the queen's wedding day, which 
came very soon after the announcement of her engagement. 
All the preparations for the marriage had been made. The 
English Parliament had set aside an allowance for the young 
prince, who was to be known as the Prince Consort, and 
everything was ready for the marriage to take place on the 
ioth of February, 1840. Although it was a dull and cloudy 
day, with frequent showers, the streets were crowded with 
spectators, who stood throughout all the rain to see their 
good queen on the way to St. James, where the marriage 
ceremony was to take place. It wasn't real " queen's weather," 
as you may know, for such weather is all sunshine and 
pleasant breezes. On this day the bride was, as is the case 
with every bride, . even the humblest, the centre of attraction 
to everybody. 

The queen, we are told, was received with tremendous 
shouts of applause as she drove slowly along from Bucking- 
ham Palace to St. James, through such a crowd as had sel- 
dom, if ever before, been seen in loyal England. She was 
very pale as she passed along under the gaze of multitudes, 
her mother by her side, guarded with nothing but those pure 
flowers which are so becoming to the marriage day, and not 



VICTORIA REGINA 269 

even allowed a veil over her drooping face, which was left so 
that all might see her. Even then she belonged to her people. 

After the wedding ceremony the clouds broke, and 
the sun, as if by magic, came out and gave London real 
"queen's weather." They set out in carriage for Windsor, 
the roadsides, for the twenty-two miles, being lined with 
people, who were enthusiastic and hearty in their applause 
as the carriage went dashing by. At Windsor, where the 
happy young couple spent their honeymoon, the old castle 
sparkled with lights, and the boys at old Eaton School turned 
out for a holiday to receive their young queen and her consort. 

Now we have told you of how good Queen Victoria 
spent her childhood days. You will read in your history 
books of the great statesmen who lived in her time, of the 
great wars which were fought, and of other things, still greater 
than any wars, which happened in peaceful days during her 
reign. You will learn also of the great things which Prince 
Albert did, of the great exposition which he helped to hold 
in London, the first of all the great world's fairs. In his day it 
was the most wonderful event in England. 

How happily the good queen and her husband, Prince 
Albert, lived, and the dear home which was made merry by 
the voices of so many children, when you grow older you 
will wish to know. All these things are told you in a great 
book, which tells all the things that happened in the life of 
Queen Victoria. But all boys and girls of America, who 
enjoy the advantages of free schools and free libraries, must 
be told that it was during Queen Victoria's reign that the 
first free school was started in England. England's great- 
ness, no doubt, is due as much to the good schools which 
were founded during Queen Victoria's time as to any other 
one thing. 




Ill 

If if 
mm 

til "itt 



270 



<S>- 



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^— ^§®%> 




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7 




imvi \\p$kmt\i 




England in the Twentieth Century. 



' Huzza. ! we've a little Prince at last 

A roaring Royal boy ; 
And all day long the booming bells 

Have rung their peals of joy. " 



THESE were the words which told of the rejoicing in 
London town when, on November 9, 1841, Edward 
VII was born. All England was glad that they 
would some day have a king, the son of the Queen 
whom they dearly loved. There had been a little girl born 
to the Queen two years before, and unless this little boy had 
come along she would have been queen to succeed her 
mother. But as there was a boy now the English people 
were delighted to think that they would have a king. 

Although it was early whispered around that the little 
boy was in the palace, it was at noon that the people were 

271 



ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 



officially told from Buckingham Palace of the great event for 
which they might rejoice. Everyone wanted to join in singing 
the national hymn, and in the theaters and public places the 
audience broke out in singing and shouting, so that almost 
all play and business was stopped for awhile. 

And what was the little Prince to be named, and what 
were to be his titles ? Can any of you guess ? I am sure you 
could not, for his titles were so many, and so long, that I 
am almost afraid to tell you. Amidst the greatest scenes of 
splendor, and surrounded by officials in bright uniforms, with 

ribbons and decora- 
tions shining irom 
their coats and 
dresses, with princes 
and high officials 
from other countries, 
he was baptized on 
January 25, 1842, in 
St. George's Chapel, 
Windsor, and christ- 
ened by the simple 
name of Albert Ed- 
ward. The first was for his father, and the second for Queen 
Victoria's father, the Duke of Kent. Officially, he was 
to be known as the Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester; 
also he was given the titles of Prince of the United Kingdom 
of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Saxony, Duke of Corn- 
wall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron Renfrew, Lord 
of the Isles and Prince, or Great Steward of Scotland. Now, 
how would any of the boys who read this book like to have 
so many titles hitched to their names? But as you know he 
was called simply Albert Edward or the Prince of Wales. 




BUCKINGHAM PALACE. 



EDWARD THE SEVENTH 



273 



For nearly six hundred years the one who was to 
become king was known as Prince of Wales. The first 
was the son of Edward I, the Black Prince of whom we have 
already learned, and who was probably the most famous of 
all the Princes who bore the title of Prince of Wales. 
But this little baby, afterward Edward VII, was for nearly 
sixty years known as the Prince of Wales. For his mother, 
Queen Victoria, lived to a good old age, and when he suc- 
ceeded to the throne he was sixty years of age. 

You will not be surprised to know that Queen Victoria 
was a good mother 
for her little boys and 
girls. She and Prince 
Albert employed the 
best teachers they 
could find, besides 
spending many hours 
themselves with their 
little children teach- 
ing them and playing 
with them. It was 
just such a model 

home as our boys and girls have, and although the young 
Prince's mother was Queen of all England, yet she did not 
forget her little boy. 

Writing to the good Prince Leopold, who had done so 
much for her, the Queen said : "I wonder very much who my 
littly boy will be like. You will understand how fervent are 
my prayers, and I am sure every one's must be, to see him 
resemble his father in every respect, both in body and mind. " 
If you could have taken a peep into their nursery, you would 
have found Prince Albert playing on the floor surrounded 




WINDSOR CASTLE. 



274 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

with all the toys you could imagine, and at other times if you 
visited the castle you would find him out driving with his 
father and mother, just as other boys and girls go out 
riding. 

As the people were so happy to have a Prince, it was, 
of course, right that they should see him once in a while. So 
before he was one year old he was taken out to see the sol- 
diers. His first public appearance was on February 4, 1842, 
when the Queen, his mother, was inspecting some troops near 
Windsor Castle. The baby Prince was held up by his nurse 
from a window of the castle so that the crowd could see him. 
He was an active lively babe, and the way he would raise his 
arms and legs amused the people and called forth as much 
applause as would the drilling of a regiment of soldiers. 

Again in September, 1843, when the Queen and the 
Prince Consort were in France, the royal children were taken 
to Brighton in charge of Lady Lyttleton^ who was a great 
friend of the Queen mother, and one she could trust with her 
little folks. The people used to take great delight in waiting 
for the daily outing on the beach of the little Prince and his 
sister, and every day a loyal salute would be made by the 
raising of hats and the waving of handkerchiefs. The little 
boy had been taught to raise his chubby fist to his forehead 
in reply to these salutes, and someone said at the time that 
he did it "with evident enjoyment and babylike dignity". 

A little later a party of nine Indians from America were 
presented to the Queen at Windsor Castle. Prince Edward 
was toddling around the floor evidently not at all afraid of 
the red men from the West. The chief looking at the baby 
Prince very gravely spoke of him in his speech as " the very 
big little White Father whose eyes are like the sky that sees 
all things and who is fat with goodness like a winter bear," 



EDWARD THE SEVENTH 



275 



Once when Tom Thumb, the little man who was less 
than three feet tall, visited England, he was invited to Buck- 
ingham Palace and the baby Prince was much entertained by 
seeing him. Soon after he had one of the greatest pleasures 
a boy can have, and he enjoyed it hugely. Can you guess 
what it was? It was an opportunity to go to the circus. 
How he clapped his hands when the clown went through all 
his funny pranks and jokes, and after the circus was over the 
clown was brought to the royal box, and the little Prince 
gravely shook hands with him and thanked him "for 
making me laugh so 
much." 

Before he was 
eight years old he had 
traveled around with 
his father and mother 
to several places. As 
you know, they had 
a royal yacht, which 
they called the Vic- 
toria and Albert, and 
in which the little 

family took a trip to the coast Of Cornwall where the little 
Prince was formally welcomed, and the people rejoiced greatly 
at having him come to them, for he was called the Duke of 
Cornwall. At another time he went to Scotland, and then 
later to Ireland, and everywhere the people were delighted to 
see the baby Prince. 

When nearly eight years old a great reception was 
given for him in Westminster, and he traveled with all the 
pomp and splendor of a royal Prince from Westminster 
to London. All London turned out to see the young 




THE PRINCE OF WALES VISITS A HOSPITAL. 



276 ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

prince and his sister, who was called the Princess Royal. Miss 
Louisa Alcott, who is the author of "Little Women," which 
every American boy and girl has read, and who saw this 
wonderful procession wrote home: "The Prince was a yellow- 
haired laddie, very much like his mother. Fanny and I 
nodded and waved as he passed, 'and he openly winked his 
boyish eye at us, and Fanny, with her yellow curls waiving, 
looked rather rowdy, and the little Prince wanted some fun." 

But we cannot tell you all of the happy times Prince 
Edward had in his boyhood days. He did not spend all of 
his time in playing and going to royal parties. His good 
father and mother saw to it that he had the best education 
that could be given him. As they knew he must know a 
great many things to be a good king, so they had in mind 
what he should study and employed the best teachers. Every 
hour of his day was planned for, and the boy was taught to 
mind in order that he might be a king who could teach others 
how to mind. So several years passed in his early education. 

But we must not forget to tell you of the very happy 
times the children had at Windsor, or Osborne or Balmoral, 
whichever home they happened to be at in the winter time. 
Once the children were given a party where they wore masques. 
Prince "Bertie," as he was sometimes called, was then twelve 
years of age. The Prince was dressed to represent Winter, 
and was clad in a coat covered with imitation icicles. Prin- 
cess Alice, his sister, was Spring, and his older sister, the 
Princess Royal, was Summer. Prince Alfred, his brother, 
was Autumn, while his other brothers and sisters represented 
other things, so they had a great time in the castle, and the 
rooms fairly echoed with laughter and fun. 

Once his father and mother took him on a visit to France. 
It had been a long time since an English king and queen 



EDWARD THE SEVENTH 



277 



had taken their family to a foreign land on a visit, but the 
French people were delighted to have the visitors, and a great 
reception was given them. Prince Edward, and his older 
sister, the Princess Royal, were presented at a splendid ball 
given in the Palace at Versailles and sat down at supper with 
the emperor and empress. 

The young prince enjoyed his visit so much, and liked 
the emperor and empress so well, that he begged the em- 
press to get leave for his sister and himself to stay a little 
longer. The queen and his father, he told them, had six 
more children at 
home, and they could, 
he thought, do with- 
out him for a while. 
What do you think 
of that? Of course, 
his father and mother 
could not agree to 
such a thing, for even 
if they did have eight 
children they could 
not spare one of them. 
Yet the Prince Consort was greatly pleased with the way in 
which the children had behaved, and was glad they had 
enjoyed their visit. 

After Prince Edward was fourteen years old he traveled 
through England, Scotland and Ireland, his teachers going 
with him, and also men who were well acquainted with every 
place. This was done in order that he might see and be 
seen by the people he was some time to rule, and also know 
all about what they were doing. He visited factories and 
railroads, and schools and hospitals and workshops, and his 




BUCKINGHAM PALACE. 



278 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

instructors told him all they could about them. He did not 
claim his rights as the Prince of Wales, but traveled under 
one of his other titles, and people were not allowed to stop 
their work because he was looking on. Then again his 
teachers took him over to Germany and France and Italy, in 
order that he might see something of the outside world. 

But now we come to tell you something which was very 
sad for Prince Edward. When he had reached the age of 
nineteen the first great sorrow of his life came to him. His 
good father, the Prince Consort, whom everybody loved, died 
on December 13, 1861, a loss which his son felt very deeply. 
From this time the young prince, who was almost a man, 
was obliged to learn what his mother, the good queen, had 
to do, and try his best to help her. He proved to be a good 
son, and for many, many long years after his father's death 
he helped her in all the ways he could. 

I cannot stop to tell you all the many things which hap- 
pened to him after he became a man, but there is one thing 
which will interest you very much, and that was the visit he 
made to America. It is one which every American boy and 
girl should know of, as their fathers and mothers can remem- 
ber the story of the fervent rejoicing which took place when, 
in i860, Edward, the Prince of Wales, visited this country. 
Great preparations were made in England for the trip, and 
the people of our country also went to great expense, and 
took a great deal of trouble to give him a royal welcome. 
The great Victoria Bridge across the St. Lawrence River at 
Montreal had just been completed, and Prince Edward was 
invited to come over and be present at the opening ceremony. 
The name of the ship which brought the prince to this country 
was the "Hero." 

On his arrival in Newfoundland he was received by the 



EDWARD THE SEVENTH 



279 



ringing of bells, lusty cheers, waving of flags and huge bon- 
fires. When he visited Halifax the whole city turned out to 
welcome the queen's son. The streets were lined with sol- 
diers, and were beautifully decorated by arches, lanterns and 
evergreens. At one place 4,000 children sang a song espe- 
cially written for the occasion. 

He visited many other places, including St. John, where 
he was also given a royal welcome. The school children 
crowded the streets to see the young prince. Other places 
he visited were Fredericton, where he attended church, and 
Charlottetown, where 
the rain fairly poured 
down, yet the people 
stood out in the midst 
of it all to see him 
and the children 
again sang the nat- 
ional hymn. 

But I must tell 
you what a royal 
welcome he had at 
Quebec. The old- 
fashioned French city, built along the side of a cliff, was 
bright with flags and the streets were filled with arches, while 
crowds of happy people filled every part of the place. The 
governor-general welcomed the prince at the wharf, and 
speeches were made telling him that he was a welcome 
guest. He spent a very happy time in the old city, during 
which he visited its schools and the great universities. 

From Quebec he went to Montreal, where a fleet of ves- 
sels met him as he came up the river. The mayor in scarlet 
robes and his officers in beautiful uniforms welcomed him to 




BALMORAL CASTLE, SCOTLAND. 



2 So ROYAL CHILDREN OP ENGLISH HISTORY 

the city. The streets were gay with flags, banners, evergreens 
and eight beautiful arches. The prince, as I have told you, 
was invited to attend the opening of the new Victoria Bridge 
at that city. This he enjoyed very much. So he spent many 
days in Canada, going to all the large cities, and being every- 
where welcomed by young and old as the greatest prince who 
had ever visited America. 

He had been invited to make a visit to the United States 
and this he did on leaving Canada. He was received there 
with a great deal of rejoicing and pleasure. He had been 
invited to make this visit by President Buchanan, but it was 
understood when he accepted the invitation that he would 
travel, not as the Royal Prince of England, but under one of 
his other titles, Lord Renfrew. However, this did not matter, 
for his cousins in the United States insisted upon giving him 
a royal welcome. He visited Chicago and saw that wonder- 
ful city, which was not one-fourth the size it is now. He also 
visited St. Louis, which was then a place of only 17,000 
people, and while there a State fair was being held, which he 
visited. Of course, it was nothing like the great fair which 
took place there in 1904. Many people came to the fair 
because it was known that the royal prince would be there. 

When the prince reached Washington -he was welcomed 
to the Capital by the distinguished American, General Cass, 
and taken to the White House, where he was presented to the 
President. A great ■ reception was given in his honor, and 
thousands of people came to see him. From Washington he 
passed through Baltimore and Philadelphia and on to New 
York, where he was received by the people with a great deal 
of joy and pleasure. Everybody wanted to do honor to him 
and to give him special attention. But after a short stay 
in New York and Boston he left the American shores, 



EDWARD THE SEVENTH 



accompanied by a British squadron, for home, and on Nov- 
ember 9th arrived at Plymouth, after an absence of many 
months from his native land. 

And now I am sure you have enjoyed learning so much 
of our good King Edward VII, and no doubt, you know the 
rest very well, but there are a few things I must tell you of 
the kind which interest every boy and girl. First is the story 
of the good and beautiful 



young princess who be- 
came the wife of Prince 
Edward, and whom we 
know now as Queen 
Alexandra. She was 
born a Princess, but in an 
humble home in Copen- 
hagen, Denmark. Her 1 
father afterwards became 
King of Denmark, where 
he is known as King 
Christian IX. The mother 
of the little princess was 
a sensible woman, very 
fond of her home and her 
children whom she gave 
a careful education. She was also fond of music, and at the 
same time loved to keep her home neat and tidy ; so her girls 
were trained not only to be good musicians but also to be 
good housekeepers. One of her daughters became Empress 
of Russia and the other one the Queen of Great Britain. 

Princess Alexandra, as she was called, was one of the 
most beautiful girls in Europe. Prince Albert happened to 
see her portrait, and was so well pleased with it that he wanted 




THE PRINCESS ALEXANDRA. 



2 82 ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

to see the girl herself. By chance he met her in a cathedral 
in Europe while he was traveling, and again met her several 
times during his tour. It was not long before the young 
people were engaged to be married, and there was great rejoic- 
ing both in England and Denmark. The Danish people, 
although they were very poor, were so delighted that they 
made a purse of 8,000 pounds (nearly $40,000 in our money) 
to give to the princess on her marriage. But the good prin- 
cess, although she was delighted with the love of her people as 
shown by this present, asked that a large portion of it should 
be given to six poor girls whose weddings would take place 
on the same day, for she knew that she would have all she 
needed when she became Crown Princess of England. 

In this country when a girl is to be married her lover 
comes to her town for the wedding, but in the case of the 
Crown Prince of England it was thought best for the princess, 
whom he was to marry, to come to England for the marriage, 
so, accompanied by he'r parents, and brothers and sisters, the 
princess left Denmark for her new home. The streets were 
strewn with flowers and crowded with the people who loved 
her so much. She came to England on board the "Victoria 
and Albert," which had been sent for her, and accompanied 
by a squadron of ships. A great time indeed it was when she 
arrived, for the people were delighted to welcome the bride 
of their prince. 

The dense crowds which lined the shores where the boat 
landed saw a sight which someone has well described as 
pretty, "A timid girlish figure, dressed entirely in white, who 
appeared on the deck at her mother's side and then, retiring 
to the cabin, was seen first at one window, then at another, 
the bewildering face framed in a little white bonnet, the work 
of her own hands." 



EDWARD THE SEVENTH 283 

Of course, the prince went in his yacht to meet her. As 
the royal couple landed girls strewed flowers under their feet. 
Then came the procession from Gravesend to London and 
thence to Windsor, through long lines of decorated houses 
covered with garlands of flowers, and on both sides of the 
streets were crowds of people and soldiers. Tennyson, the 
poet Laureate of England, wrote a beautiful poem on the 
coming of Princess Alexandra, which all of you should read, 
and speaking of her welcome, said : 

" Welcome her; thunders of fort and of fleet ! 
Welcome her ; thundering cheer of the street ! 
Welcome her ; all things youthful and sweet ! 
Scatter the blossoms under her feet." 

In Saint George's Chapel, Windsor, the young people 
were married with great pomp and splendor. One who saw 
it said': "It was a very magnificent sight — rich, gorgeous and 
imposing. Beautiful women were arrayed in the richest attire, 
in bright colors, blue, purple, red, and were covered with 
diamonds and jewels. As each of the royal persons, with 
their attendants, walked up the aisle of the Chapel, at a 
certain point each stopped and made an obeisance to the 
queen. The bride, with her bridesmaids, made the best and 
most beautiful scene. The princess looked very charming 
and graceful in her appearance and demeanor. After the 
wedding the happy wedded pair took their departure for 
Osborne, on the Isle of Wight, where they spent their honey- 
moon. A new home had been prepared for them at Sand- 
ringham where they began housekeeping, as happy as any 
two people ever were. 

For nearly sixty years, which is a long time indeed, Albert 
Edward was Prince of Wales ; but on the death of his mother, 



284* 



ROYAL CHILDREN OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



the good Queen Victoria, which happened on January 22, 1901, 
he became King of England and took the title of Edward 
the Seventh. 

And now I shall end this story, for I am sure you all 
know what has happened since he became king, and how much 
he is loved wherever the English flag waves. You will well 
remember that his son, the present Prince of Wales, visited 
this country on his way around the world in 1902, and that 
a royal reception was given him. It was very much like the 
tour that his father had taken many years before, and of which 
I have already told you. The Prince of Wales has also boys 
and girls of his own, one of whom will, no doubt, in his turn 
be known as the Prince of Wales and finally become King of 



England. 



We shall learn more of them by-and-by. 




*In folioing this book the full-page half-tone Illustrations are not counted. 
^There are in all 300 pages in this book | 



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